Doubled Fruits Basket
by Marina StormFire
Summary: Summary: What if Tohru had an older twin sister, who was physically different and not as naive? Her name… Aoshi Honda. full summary inside! main pairing is: Kyou X Tohru OCs are included R&R plz!
1. Let the Fun Begin!

Doubled Fruits Basket  
By: Shy Freefall

Summary: What if Tohru had an older twin sister, who was physically different and not as naive? Her name… Aoshi Honda. She has Kyoko's personality... but her looks come from her father. She is also protective of her younger twin. So what happens when she finds that Tohru has been staying with the Sohmas?

Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket OR its storyline. I only own my ideas and Other Characters.

**Narrative ****by ****character  
Yelling ****by ****someone ****outside ****the ****current ****conversation  
Emphasis  
**_Thoughts __or __Flashbacks __or __dreamstates_  
YELLING  
Story

* * *

**Introduction**

/before we met the Honda twins... / Yuki's POV

**The ****house ****was ****a ****total ****mess. ****And ****by ****mess... ****I ****mean, ****the ****place ****looked ****like ****it ****was ****lived ****in, ****by ****animals, ****rather ****than ****people. ****I ****stared ****at ****the ****takeout ****dish ****in ****my ****hands, ****and ****then ****sighed.** _'What's __some __more __trash __in __the __trash__bags?'_**  
And ****threw ****the ****trash ****away.**

* * *

Let the fun begin!

Chapter 1

Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr

The brown haired girl groggily groped for her cell phone. When she finally picked it up, she answered it.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hey there, Kitten. Are you up, yet?" a female voice asked. "Kitten" woke up then.

"What time is it, Aoshi?" she asked, not bothering to look at her cellphone clock. Aoshi chuckled on the phone.

"Almost time for you to get going to school. I'll meet you there, Alrighty?" Aoshi said, as she listened for a response. None.

"Kitten? You okay?" There was the sound of someone falling on the ground and muffled "oomph."

"Tohru? Are you alright?"

A pause, then,

"Uh… yeah, I'm alright. I'll see at the school, sis." Tohru heard her sister laugh, and then heard her sister calm down long enough to tell her something else.

"Be safe, Tohru. I love you."

"Love you too, sis. I gotta go. I'll meet you at school." The two girls hung up.

Tohru was a brown haired, lilac-eyed 15-year-old proper girl… and a visible opposite of her older twin sister, Aoshi Honda, who was a dark purple haired, grey-violet eyed of the same age… and was a tomboy to the core, with her father's looks and her mother's personality and attitude. While Tohru had no one's looks in particular… she was protected and looked after by her older twin sister.

She hurried to gather her school things and finish putting her hair up in their proper hair ties. Grabbed her schoolbag and hurried out her tent flap doorway. You are probably wondering: Why is she living in a tent? Well… you are going to have to read on and find out why.

/Tohru's POV/

I look up at the clear blue sky with its fluffy white clouds. And put my hand over my eyes to shade them from the brightness of the sun.

"WOW…looks like it's gonna be another hot one today."

**Hi ****there, ****my ****name ****is ****Tohru ****Honda. ****You're ****probably ****wondering ****why ****I'm ****currently ****living ****in ****a ****tent. ****Well, ****mine ****and ****my ****sister's ****mother ****passed ****away ****this ****last ****May. ****She ****raised ****my ****older ****twin ****sister, ****Aoshi, ****and ****me ****all ****by ****herself. ****But ****when ****she ****was ****gone, ****so ****was ****our ****home. ****So ****now, ****I ****live ****in ****a ****tent****… ****and ****my ****sister****… ****well, ****she ****lives ****with ****a ****friend ****of ****hers ****that ****could ****spare ****some ****room. ****But ****she ****was ****pretty ****upset, ****when ****she ****found ****out ****that ****I ****was ****living ****in ****a ****tent. ****I ****have ****to ****admit, ****that ****I ****kinda ****miss ****her. ****She ****always ****looks ****after ****me, ****and ****I ****kinda ****grew ****up ****with a ****big ****sister ****complex****… ****or ****so ****she ****tells ****me.**_'_

_It looks like I have a little bit of time before I have to really leave for school. So I guess I can explore the area a little bit.'_

"I'm not forgetting anything, am I? Okay, mom, you're in charge while I'm gone. I'm off!"

**I can't really say that our life is real easy… but we make out okay. As for me, well, no matter what happens in life… I never let it get me down. As Aoshi would say, "You're (I'm) ever the optimist." But Aoshi tends to be a realist and can be a pessimist sometimes.**

There was a rather small traditional house that was just off the path that Tohru was walking by, when she spotted it. _'Wow__… __I__didn't__realize__that__this__was__here.__It's__so__peaceful.'_She thought to herself. Then she spotted little figurines in the shape of animals. _'Aww__… __how__cute!'_Then an unfamiliar voice.

"Hmm? Hello, I must be seeing things… there's a girl out here… a high school girl no less."

Tohru was shocked for a moment just staring at the handsome young man, and then the sudden realization dawned on her that… maybe she was trespassing on private property?

"Ummm… OH! Ah… H-hello! I'm sorry for trespassing! I… um… I just saw these and—"

_'Aoshi __keeps __getting __on __my __back __because __I __do __these __kinds __of __things __impulsively__… __I __shouldn't __have __done __it, __but __it's __done __anyway__…__'_He smiled, then said: "Please continue. I only set them out here to dry." He paused for a moment as if he was thinking.

"I thought you young people were _bored_ by old-fashioned superstitions like the Chinese Zodiac." He said thoughtfully.

_'Hmmm__… __what __a __beautiful __person__…__'_ Tohru thought to herself, and then snapped back to reality. "O-oh, no! I think these zodiac ornaments are adorable!"

He kneeled down on the porch next to the ornaments.  
"Hmm…aren't they? I like them too."

Tohru looked closer at the ornaments thoughtfully.  
_'Hmm__… __rat, __ox, __tiger, __rabbit, __dragon, __snake, __horse, __ram, __monkey, __rooster, __dog, __and __boar__…__'_ It seemed that there was one that was missing… then it occurred to her.

"Oh, but I suppose you wouldn't have the cat…" she finally said.

The man looked at her surprised and thought to himself, _'She's __very __well-informed!'  
_"Cat? Oh, you mean from the Chinese Zodiac Legend?"

Tohru nodded at his statement.  
"Uh-huh! My mom used to tell my sister and me that story all the time when we were little.

/Flashback/

_"Once upon a time, God told the animals, "I'm inviting you all to my banquet tomorrow. Don't be late!" Hearing that, the mischievous rat lied to his neighbor, the cat, and told him that the banquet would be the day after tomorrow.  
The next day, the rat rode on the back of the ox and nimbly landed before the banquet hall. After him followed, the ox, the tiger, and all the rest, and together they feasted until morning of the next day. All except the cat, who had been tricked." _

_*SNIFF SNIFF*_

_Kyoko and young Aoshi both looked at Tohru, who was crying.  
"How come you're crying, Tohru?" Aoshi asked her younger twin.  
"Poor thing! Poor, poor, poor cat…," she said, tears streaming down her face. Then she stood up. "I know! I'll stop being a dog and be a cat!"  
Kyoko couldn't care less, for in her mind, it was only a story. Aoshi only shook her head._

/End Flashback/

"**That's** how much I like the cat." Tohru concluded to the stranger on his porch.

"Is that so? I wish I could see the look on his face if he heard you say that."

Tohru looked at him in confusion. "Hmmm?"

The stranger changed the subject. "So you were born in the Year of the Dog? I knew I felt a connection. Can you feel it? See I'm a "Dog" too, you—" he was cut off all of sudden, when something came down—hard—on his head. "…see…"

Tohru was speechless for a minute, until she heard a soft-spoken voice.

"Really, must you act like such a pervert?" the soft-spoken voice asked the stranger, who looked up just then and asked in a whiny kind of voice.

"Okay, that hurt. What do you have in there, a dictionary?"

"**Two** of them." The soft-spoken voice replied. Tohru was rooted to her spot, when the sudden realization of who was currently standing right in front of her… until he spoke to her…

"Are you alright, Miss Honda? My cousin didn't do anything to you, did he?"

Tohru could swear right then that Aoshi was probably getting an overload of feelings from her spaz attacks as she (Aoshi) called them.

"Ah… Y-Yuki! Ahmm… G-good morning!"

Yuki Sohma smiled and replied, "Morning."

/Later at Kaibara High School/

"ALRIGHT, MISS HONDA! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" Minami Kinoshita of Class 1-D demanded, as Tohru was on her way to class, along with three other anonymous girls.

Tohru backed up some at the demand. But Minami wasn't letting her go.

"WHY DID YOU AND YUKI COME TO SCHOOL TOGETHER? GIVE US A FULL AND COMPLETE EXPLANATION! WELL?"

"Yeah yeah!"  
"That's right."  
"Full AND complete!"

Tohru was sweating. "W-well… i-it was j-just a coincidence! D-don't you think you're overreacting?"

Minami wasn't aware that Tohru's older sister was glaring at her, until after her next statement.

"YOU IDIOT! OVERREACTING? IF COINCIDENCES LIKE THAT WERE LEGAL, WE WOULDN'T NEED THE POLICE!"

"Yeah yeah!"  
"That's right!"  
"Indeed!"

A nearby teacher heard all the yelling, and yelled back, **"QUIET ****IN ****THE ****HALLS!"**  
"Give it a rest already. You really DON'T need to be in Tohru's face about it." A girl said from behind Tohru, after setting a calming hand on the spazzed girl's shoulder. Minami looked from Tohru to the girl behind her, and nearly froze at the glare that was being directed her way. But her mistake was ignoring the warning in that glare and turned her attention back to Tohru.

_That's right. The charming Yuki Sohma… he may be just a first-year student, but he's already reigning "Prince" at our school._

"LOOK YOU! JUST BECAUSE YUKI SOHMA IS KIND ENOUGH TO HANG OUT WITH YOU…IT'S NO REASON FOR YOU TO GET A SWELLED HEAD!"

Tohru was near tears, when she felt the hand on her shoulder tighten in a comforting way. If glares could kill, then Aoshi's glare would certainly, if not kill, then it could certainly paralyze someone within an inch of their lives.

"Back. Off." Was the reply from Aoshi. Minami paid attention this time and nearly passed out from seeing the enraged look in the older sister's eyes. But she persisted with a "Hmph."

Just then…

"HEY!"

Minami slowly turned around, and found a… blond yankee and dark haired goth. The blonde-haired person was glaring daggers at the fangirl.

"Tohru said it was a coincidence, didn't she? Stop fantasizing and get a life."

Tohru snapped out of her own thoughts. And brightened up some, thanks to her older twin and their two best friends: Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima.

"Ah! Good morning, Uo, Hana…"

For a moment, Minami looked like she was going to give up… but tried to give Tohru a guilt trip.

"W-what's this? Threatening us with your gangster buddy, huh? Don't think that we're finished with you just because of this yankee!"

The three girls behind Minami shuddered at the "Yankee's" presence… but they shivered even worse, at the dark haired girl's reply.

"I could *BEEEEEEEP* them with electro-poison waves…"

The four girls ran off in record time.

Tohru finally let out a sigh of relief and sagged a little bit, as her older twin hugged her from behind.

"Rough day already, Kitten?" she asked, good-natured humor in her voice. Tohru sighed and nodded her head.

"Yes…" she replied, then noticing the time, looked at her twin and two best friends. "I'll tell you at Home Economics, okay?" and getting a nod from her two best friends, but no particular answer from her sister, she sighed. Her sister had locked eyes with Yuki, who only nodded and she nodded in return.

"Sis? You okay?" she asked, knowing that a lot of people didn't really like her sister for, well, a lot of reasons. One reason, was that she wore the guy's uniform and another reason, is her uncaring attitude for the school rules.

/Flashback/

_"You're Yuki's classmate? Then let's start again. I'm Shigure Sohma, Yuki's cousin." Introduced the stranger. _

_Tohru gave the traditional bow."Nice to meet you, I'm Tohru Honda."  
"Miss Honda, what brings you here?" Yuki asked, wondering why Tohru was in the area at blushed full-tilt red, and started stuttering.  
"Oh… ahmm… I, ah, l-live nearby." She wasn't exactly lying, but she wasn't sure how to explain that she was living in a tent to them.  
"Near here? Really?" Shigure asked, but Tohru was spared answering when Yuki, seeing her discomfort decided to come to her rescue.  
"Well, anyway, we're going to be late. Since you're here, why don't we walk to school together?"_

/End Flashback/

"I was really nervous. Yuki's soo handsome… I just froze up." Tohru said, as she blushed. Aoshi chuckled.

"Most girls think that, Tohru. But you on the other hand, are completely honest about it." She said, and added a few spices and sliced pineapple to her fried fish.

"Hmm… I detect strange waves emanating from him." Hanajima stated as she put the knife away back in its covering.

"Time for Hana's wave report." Uotani stated in a bored tone. Aoshi continued with her hunt for certain kitchen equipment and ingredients, but listened intently.

"'Strange'?" Tohru asked.

"I don't really know how else to explain it." Hana said.

"What's to explain? The guy's a walking mystery," Uo said, then explained. "I heard that a 2nd year girl confessed her love to him once… but when she tried to hug him, he pushed her away and high-tailed it. Totally freaked her out."

Tohru sweat dropped. "I-I didn't know that. I wonder why."

Aoshi knew that there was something near abnormal about alleged "Prince" Yuki Sohma. When she locked eyes with him earlier she saw a chained creature… from the vivid shape of the creature, she'd have to guess that it was some kind of rodent… either a rat or a mouse, some animal of the nature. But one thing she knew for sure was that Yuki Sohma wasn't by any means, NORMAL.

"Exactly," Hana went on. "it's the mystery that makes him so intriguing."

The Home Economics teacher spotted the four… or rather three of them talking and was walking over to see what was being done about their assignments.

"You three! Move your hands, not your mouths!" she said, as she looked over the lavished meals. "Oh… oh my."

Uo only looked like she was gonna fall asleep any minute. "Hey lobster face. Can we go now, or do you need help to extract your foot from your mouth?"

The teacher was knocked out of her stupor, pointed at the lavished food, and exclaimed, "Who do you think you're fooling? Miss Honda made those for you!"

Aoshi grinned at the Home ec. Teacher. "Which one?"

The teacher nearly passed out, but managed to walk away and tend some other students who weren't as good with their cooking. As soon as the teacher walked away to help some other students, Uo then turned to the twins.

"Oh hey, I'm going shopping with Hana on my way home today. Why don't the two of you come with? Oh wait… you're working today, aren't you, Tohru?" she asked the twin between Hana and herself.

Tohru nodded and answered, "Yes, I don't want to be late."

"That sucks, you having to pay ALL your school expenses by yourself." Uo replied, with some distaste. Hana nodded her head in agreement.

"But you shouldn't have to work everyday just to pay your tuition. Besides, this is a private school." Tohru sighed and hoped that they would understand her next statement.

"I know, but after I graduate, I want to be able to pay my own way. That's why I have to start saving what I can now." That particular statement set Uotani off in a fit of tears.

"Goddammit, Tohru. You're making my cry! So selfless… eat up. You need your strength!"

Tohru sweat dropped and smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

At the same time, Uo stopped crying crocodile tears and asked, "Oh yeah, you're still living with your dad's family right?"

Tohru was startled and wasn't exactly sure what to say. But thankfully, Aoshi stepped in.

"Actually, she is. I'm not… I've managed to get my own small two-bedroom apartment, and grandpa Honda was willing to co-sign for me." She said, and smiled a comforting smile at her younger twin, knowing that she was living in a tent, rather than at their grandfather's home.

**I can't tell Uo and Hana the truth. If Uo found out I were living in a tent, she'd be outraged and probably burst into grandpa's house on her motorcycle!**

Aoshi's eyes widened all of a sudden, when she played back their conversation so far and came upon their conversation on work. And looked at Uo as she said, "Ah! I almost forgot about work… actually, I'm working today too. I've got some good recipes that i practiced with yesterday. And if my boss says that they're fit for the diner menu, we'll be adding those."

Uo and Hana both looked a little disappointed that both the Honda girls wouldn't be able to go shopping with them after school.

/Later… after school let's out/

Tohru was heading to her locker to change her shoes and leave for the day with her sister for work, when she nearly ran into none other than Yuki Sohma, who was changing his own shoes for his own walk home.

"Ah!" she exclaimed in surprise, and then felt the need to apologize for earlier that morning. "I'm really sorry about this morning." She said apologetically, hoping that he hadn't guessed that she actually lived in the forest surrounding where he lived.

He smiled as he closed his locker door. "It's I, who should apologize. Please forgive my cousin's rudeness…"

Tohru shook her head and answered, "Oh no, he was wonderful! We were just looking at his Chinese zodiac ornaments."

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then asked out of curiosity, "Did I hear you correctly that you wished you were born Year of the Cat?"

Tohru blushed pink. "I was… ahmm… eccentric when I was little…" she stuttered out, as she remembered how she said, _"I __know! __I'll __stop __being __a __Dog, __and __be __a __Cat!"  
_"I see," he replied thoughtfully, then added, "the cat is a fool… and has a bad nature."

"Huh?" _'He __has __a __bad __nature? __That __doesn't __sound __right__…__'_ Tohru thought to herself, but followed Yuki's story, as she walked slightly behind him.

"Did you know…" he went on, "… that the Chinese zodiac was actually a timekeeping system of tens and twelves? It was originally used for calendars and clocks. But later on, astrologers combined it with the principles of yin-yang, the five elements, and symmetry in order to tell the future."

Now Tohru was confused. "Animals had nothing to do with it?"

"No," he replied quietly, "when and why they added the animals… no one really knows. But there has never been room for the cat in the zodiac. And it's better that way. The cat would throw everything off. The cat really is a fool."

This last statement threw Tohru completely off… _'I __was __following __his __story __just __fine__… __but __now __I'm __really __lost__…__'_ she thought to herself, but looked at the way Yuki was looking at her. His eyes were somewhat narrowed in a look that could be called glaring, but he couldn't be glaring at her, could he? He was probably glaring at something _beyond_ her… something she couldn't possibly understand. An anonymous wind blew, and leaves flew everywhere. One landed on her head without her noticing. _'Huh?'_

B-didebeeb! B-didebeep! B-didebeep!

The sound of her watch beeping broke her out of her thoughts. _'Eh?'_

"Aaaahh! Oh no! Is it that late already?" she flushed with embarrassment, and apologized. "I'm sorry, but I promised my sister, I'd meet up with her after school and she'd walk as far as she could with me and then we'd go our separate ways to work."

Yuki didn't seem to mind, but he had noticed that she seemed a little ill, and said so.

"Miss Honda," he said, and picked the stray leaf off her head. "I noticed this morning… you don't look very well. It has been quite hot lately, so don't overexert yourself." He paused after that, and his eyes softened subtly, then added, "Well, I'll see you tomorrow.

_"It's __the __mystery __that __makes __him __so __intriguing."_

**I ****think ****I ****know ****what ****she ****meant. ****My ****head ****is ****spinning ****just ****from ****being ****around ****him.**

From nearby, Minami and the three girls from earlier that morning were watching the exchange with jealous looks behind a small group of trees.

_"Don't __get __a __swelled __head!"  
_"DON'T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YUKI'S KINDNESS!"

Tohru immediately started feeling sweat come to her brows, and started jogging forward to meet her sister. "I WON'T!" she hollered back at the girls behind the trees. Aoshi wasn't too far ahead, and when she called out to her, Aoshi turned with a small grin, and slowed down enough for her sister to catch her breath… and shook her head.

"Had a small exchange with the Prince of the school, Kitten?" Aoshi asked her, as Tohru finally caught her breath. She nodded… then as a thoughtful question, asked her sister the one question that had bugged her since she caught Aoshi catch Yuki's eyes.

"Hey sis?" Tohru asked, carefully.

"Hmm? What is it, Kit?"

"Well… I was just wondering, what did you see… when you, ahmm…" Tohru wasn't sure how else to word to her question. Thankfully, Aoshi saw where her sister was going.

"What? When I caught his eyes?" At Tohru's nod, she looked at the slowly darkening sky, when she finally replied. "Hmm… I'm not really sure what I saw, but if I saw what I think I saw… I don't think that would warrant any interference or questions from me on any account." She said, as they came to the crossroads junction where they would part on their separate ways to work. They hugged and wished each other safety to and from work.

"Be careful on your way home, Tohru. And try and rest a little while you're working. You can't really afford to get yourself sick." Aoshi chided, as she hugged her younger twin. Tohru hugged her back.

"I will, sis. Be safe." And watched her sister's back as she proceeded to cross the crossroad to the company building where she worked, as a part-time fashion designer. Tohru sighed, and proceeded on her own way to another company builder, where she worked as one of many janitors for the building.

_"__… __don't __overexert __yourself."_

/(short) Flashback/

'Yuki, please don't worry on my behalf. I'm pretty sure my mom had it much worse. Our father died when we were 5 years old, so our mom worked hard to support the three of us. Aoshi too, only though she was small, she asked our neighbors if there was any yard work or housework that she could do for pocket money at all… and through it all, our mom was there for us. She was our cheerful protector… but it never really occurred to us that she could die… well, maybe to Aoshi, but it never really occurred to me. There were arguments on who would take us in, though I'm sure that our relatives had their reasons. Eventually, Aoshi broke the news that she had found a small two-bedroom apartment for us both, had asked our grandfather on our father's side to co-sign, and also made arrangements with her landlord about the rent. Our relatives were, aghast, I think, to find that my older twin had found a small apartment for us both, and had even asked me to live with her. But I think she accepted it, when the family decided that if Aoshi was going to live in her apartment, I would be better off with our grandfather Honda. Grandpa lives off a pension, so… since I had no real experience working like my sister, I promised to pay my expenses myself. That was in May. But four months later…'

_"My __daughter's __family __is __coming __to __live __with __us. __But __I __thought __it __would __be __nice __to __have __the __house __remodeled __before __they __arrive. __And __during __the __remodeling, __I'll __be __staying __at __their __house. __I'm __sorry, __but __could __you __stay __with __your __sister __for __the __time __being __or __a __friend __during __that __time?"_

/End Flashback/

_'Uo __lives __in __a __small __apartment, __and __Hana __lives __in __a __family __of __five__… __and __my __sister __has __another __room __that __I __could __use __during __the __remodeling__… __but __I __don't __think __I __could __trouble __them __for __however __many __months __it __could __take __to __remodel! __Then, __it __hit __me__… __I'm __going __to __start __living __on __my __own __anyway. __So __why __don't __I __just __start __now? __That's __right__… __you __make __your __own __luck. __It's __all __in h__ow __you __think __about __things. __Even __if __it __means __living __in __a __tent __that __your __older __twin __sister __bought __on __sale __for __you!__' _

/End Flashback/  
All of sudden, a man's voice broke Tohru out of her thoughts.

"Er, miss, can you move these? I can't get through."

"Ah, yes sir! Sorry, sir!" and hurried away with the trash bags that were blocking a doorway. And leaving a stunned man behind with the realization that it was a high school girl that he had remove the trash bags from blocking the doorway. Tohru went back into her thoughts again.

_'Even __if __instead, __of __door-to-door __salesman__… __I'm __visited __instead __by __mosquitoes __and __slugs__… __and __even __if __a __simple __storm __threatens __to __blow __my __make-shift __home__away, __like __the __storm __from __the __other __day__…'_

"I'll never give up! I can't let it get me down. I will not allow for sadness. My home is my castle. My home is my castle." She murmured to herself, as she cleaned the windows, and windowsills. Some other janitors were resting nearby.

"Ever since she got here, work has gotten a whole lot easier." One cleaning lady said to another who nodded her head in agreement. The hours wore on, and soon it was time to punch out and go home for a good night's rest. Aoshi had called a few minutes before Tohru left her work, and had said that unfortunately, she wasn't going to be able to pick her up from work and walk her home, before going home herself. So Tohru was stuck going back to her home in the tent, alone.

/With the Sohmas/

"My my my, look at the time. I almost forgot about dinner. Take-out food every night is no way to live." A man in a traditional kimono said with a sigh, as he and his younger soft-spoken cousin walked along a path in their nearby forest, which was part of their own backyard.

"Then YOU make dinner, Shigure." The soft-spoken teen said. Shigure glanced at his younger cousin, and nearly scowled.

"But Yuki, you HATE my cooking." He replied.

"That's because you put pickles in curry. That's disgusting." Yuki said, as he walked along the path, lost in his own thoughts… mainly wondering about that morning's conversation, with one Tohru Honda. And wondered how she could be living nearby at all.

"As if you're one to talk…" Shigure was saying. "You may be smart, but your homemaking skills leave much to be desired. What we hopeless bachelors need, is a _flower_ to brighten up our barbaric lives." He said as he looked up at the bright moon overhead and sighed. Yuki almost grinned at Shigure's near poetry.

"Well, aren't you progressive, Shigure." He said. Shigure looked at Yuki wonderingly, and asked, "What? Wouldn't _you_ like to have a woman around the house?"

All of sudden, Shigure spotted movement in the patch of trees just ahead of them… and a somewhat familiar figure staggering through them in a different direction.

"Oh! Isn't that Tohru from this morning?" Shigure asked, wondering why a young girl would be wandering the woods so late at night. Yuki spotted her the moment Shigure mentioned her name.

_'Well, __looks __like __my __curiosity __is __going __to __get __the __better __of __me.'_ Yuki thought to himself, as he watched her walk further into the woods. Then a thought came to him and found himself speaking his thoughts aloud.

"I heard her mother died some time ago… Maybe she moved here?" Yuki murmured, but Shigure, being right there, heard everything with a frown.

"But that's impossible. We're not renting this land to anyone…" he said, then exchanged a look with Yuki and both, as if a mutual agreement had been struck… decided to find out just where exactly Miss Tohru Honda lived.

Tohru sighed in exhaustion… she was just dog-tired and wanted to go to sleep, but she hadn't been able to do her schoolwork at all while she was working, and had to settle for doing it when she got home.

"I'm home, mom…," Tohru yawned and murmured to herself, "I'm falling asleep. But I have to finish my homework."

Right then, Tohru felt her world spin and put her hands on her head to steady herself, or at least until the world around decided to right itself.

"Oh… so dizzy… maybe if I washed me face by the stream, I'd—" she trailed off, at the sudden realization that there were two strange, yet familiar faces standing in front of her tent.

All of a sudden, and no one expected it to happen… but one of the familiar faces burst out laughing, the other familiar face sighed, and Tohru… well… Tohru was embarrassed to say the least.

"Shigure, don't be rude." Yuki admonished, as he finally got his answer as to how Tohru could be living so close by.

/Later in the Sohma House/

Tohru had explained that she was living on her own in the tent, it was only until the remodeling on her grandfather's house was done. Then she'd go back to living with him.

"I see… so that explains the tent. How long have you been living there?" Yuki asked, understanding dawning on him. Tohru, feeling dog-tired, answered tiredly,

"For… about a week…"

Yuki decided to be honest with her for the moment. "I wondered how you could be living nearby. But you do know that that hill is Sohma property? We haven't rented it out or sold the land there."

With Shigure still in a laughing fit, Tohru was starting to get a bit desperate.

"Well… ummm… if it isn't too much trouble, then could you rent me a small camping space? I'll leave as soon as my grandpa's remodeling is done. I don't have much, but I can pay. Please?"

"That place is a bit dangerous. The cliff wall is pretty much unstable, since the last storm. And you never know when some shady character might come passing through. Besides, how will you plug in your curling iron?" Shigure asked, and went off into another fit of laughter. Yuki only looked at him for a second.

"Are you done then?" he asked his older cousin. But before Shigure could reply, Tohru, with a determined look on her face, stood up.

"It's alright! I don't mind the bugs!"

_'Ack!'_ thought both Shigure and Yuki. They didn't want to BEGIN to imagine what KIND of bugs may come into that tent.

"I can take care of myself!" Tohru went on, despite the shocked looks on the two men's faces. "Please…?"

After all that, Tohru's knees suddenly weak, buckled under her, and she fell to her knees onto the floor. "I'm begging… you…"

"Miss Honda?" Yuki exclaimed at her sudden weakness and got up to find our how high her temperature was. Her forehead was a bit warm to the touch.

"You don't look very well." He said, noticing how pale she was right then, and continued. "You have a fever too."

Shigure started to get a little frantic and headed toward the kitchen.

"Ice… I'll get the ice…" but upon looking at the state of the kitchen, Tohru blanched at the sight, but Shigure, only scratched his head… and started murmuring…

"… Huh. If I were ice, where would I be hiding…?"

"I-it's like a garbage jungle…" Tohru stuttered, seeing the mess that was there in front of her. Shigure turned to her with a grin on his face,

"Oh! That's nearly poetic!" he said, but before he could make another comment, there was a rumble and low howl somewhere in the woods. Shigure's face turned serious.

"There was a landslide just now…" he said aloud, looking out the open door towards the woods. Tohru on the other hand, was worried.

"What?"

Shigure went on as if he didn't hear her exclamation. "The ground is still weak from the storm."

Yuki was silent for a moment, contemplating what THAT particular statement could mean… Tohru, on the other hand… started having more spaz attacks, but managed to calm down a little before really assuming anything.

"Uh, ummm… how do you know…?" she asked, wonderingly.

Shigure looked at her. "How?" he asked.

"Call it.. _'animal __instinct'_." He finished dramatically, a hand on his chest and his eyes closed. Yuki walked by, and nearly hit Shigure in the back of his head.

"Quit messing around," he said. "where was the landslide?"

Shigure sighed, and shook his head. "Always so solemn, Yuki."

by now, Tohru was in a full-fledged spaz attack. "Could it have been…?" she started, then the panic overwhelmed her.

"W-WHAT IF WAS **NEAR ****MY ****TENT?**"

Shigure nearly went into another fit of laughter. "That's the spirit."

But only succeeded in making Tohru spaz out even worse… if she could get any worse…

Yuki only looked at the two of them, before settling on Shigure. "But seriously, where was it?"

Shigure shrugged and he, Yuki, and Tohru went through the woods to find the aforementioned landslide. 10 minutes later, they found it…apparently, the landslide had gone right over tent, burying anything and everything right there. Tohru only stood there in shock.

"…AH!" she silently apologized to her twin for her overreactions of the day and its events that keep on bringing on the spaz attacks. She started stuttering.

"Th-th-th-this is t-terrible! The picture of my parents is in that tent!" she ran to the landslide and started using her bare hands to dig through the dirt and mud, constantly calling out, "MOM! DAD!"

Yuki looked shocked at Tohru's reaction. "Miss Honda?" Finally remembering her fever, he started walking up to her and try to settle her down.

"Miss Honda, please, you have to calm down. You're not well." He tried to soothe her, but Tohru resisted.

"B-b-b-but—MOM! DAD! I have to save them!" _'MOM!'_ "They're in pain!" Tohru forgot everything around her. All that mattered was getting to her parents. Aoshi had gone into a rage for some unknown reason, after their father passed away when they were 5 years old. But now that their mom was gone, Tohru felt lost and so very alone. But the pictures of her parents were all she had… and she was desperate to save them both.

Shigure saw the desperation in Tohru's eyes and gently laid a hand on her dirty ones. She finally looked at him, the desperation, and pain still there.

"Let's come back when it's lighter out." Shigure suggested, "If there's another landslide, and you get hurt… your parents will be in even more pain. Alright?"

Tohru closed her eyes and nearly cried. But felt a comforting presence within her.  
_  
'Aoshi__… __thank __you.'_ She thought to herself, knowing her sister felt her distress and was sending peaceful thoughts and emotions to her younger twin… not knowing what was causing the distress. So coming out her thoughts, with flushed face now showing she had a fever, she nodded her head in resignation. And finally got to her feet, swaying a little, but holding onto Shigure and Yuki's arms, they supported her until they reached the little house. And managed to get her cleaned up and settled into a futon by the backdoor.

Shigure settled down next to her with his small fan. "Yuki's looking for some ice now. It's probably fatigue. You've been working yourself pretty hard." He told the sick girl.

"I'm sorry…" Tohru apologized, and went on, not really thinking. "…again. I lost my home again. My castle…"

Shigure looked startled at the statement. Then decided to ask whatever was on his mind. "Does it hurt?"

Tohru shook her head on the pillow. "No… my sister and I… we've been through… worse."

" You poor child…would you like to tell me about it?" he asked.

"_'Come __home __safe.'_ Why couldn't we just tell her that? The morning our mom died in the accident, I had a quiz. And Aoshi helped me study for it until late at night. We both ended up oversleeping and late for school. That was the only morning we didn't tell her, _'Come __home __safe.'_ We _**always**_ did—except that once. I—after the accident, I considered not going to school at all and just working full-time. But Aoshi convinced me not to, and mom would have said:

/Brief Flashback/  
_  
"I __only __graduated __from __Junior __High, __and __missed __out __on __a__lot __of __opportunities __because __of __it. __So __I __want __the __both __of __you __girls __to __go __to __high __school __and __have __fun __for __me."_

/End Flashback/

"She wanted a better life for the both of us. She worked so hard…so did Aoshi to help support us. And… we forgot to tell her to _'Come __home __safe.'_ Neither one of us saw her back as she left for work. But it's not too late. Even with my grades and my home being blown away… Aoshi and I can still make it up to mom…"

_'Neither Aoshi or I can bring our parents back…'_

"…but we can live the life that she wanted for us. She wanted us to finish high school… so we'll graduate… for her."

_'That's OUR goal…'_

"This is no time… to lose… to… a fever…" she trailed off, as sleep decided to take over… and her sister's peaceful inner presence as she hummed a peaceful nursery rhyme that would help Tohru fall into a deep sleep.

Yuki was in the doorway holding an ice pack, when Tohru finally fell asleep.

"Is she asleep?" he asked, after a few minutes of silence. Shigure looked over his should with Yuki nearly right behind him.

"You were listening?" he asked his younger cousin. Yuki nodded and a brief memory of a smiling Tohru with her two friends and her twin sister—a year ahead of them, with an arm around Tohru, grinning.

"I'm surprised," Yuki finally said, "at school, she and her sister are so carefree. You could never imagine the life they've both lived. It's incredible really."

Shigure wasn't sure what Yuki was getting at. "Incredible? How?" he asked.

"I've always wanted… to run from the Sohma Family…" He paused, then went on. "but I only had the courage to run as far as another Sohma house. I could've lived in a tent, like Miss Honda. I could've gone to the woods." He almost grinned at he irony. "… I'm acting like a spoiled brat. It's pathetic."

Shigure lightly tapped Yuki on the head with his fan. "Well, you **ARE** spoiled… but your spirit is different from Tohru's. there's really no comparison. And if you think **that's** incredible… then you really **don't** appreciate her."

Yuki nearly grinned at that statement. But watching Tohru quietly sleeping, with her schoolbag on the side, and at her insistence her small plain pink cellphone that she said, Aoshi had gotten her, right near her head. But getting back to Shigure's statement, Yuki broke out of his thoughts.

"You're right." He said quietly, then just as silently, he got up from his position on the floor. Then he spoke. "Can you take care of her? I'm going out."

Shigure looked slightly startled at the question, then glanced up Yuki, who was walking away toward the open door.

"Where? Don't tell me you're going to dig up her things? Should I go with you? It's too much to do on your own." He asked, as Yuki opened the back door. A rat came in the open door and circled Yuki's feet.

"Alone?" the soft-spoken teen asked, as he turned around with a mysterious look in his eyes. "I never said that… I was going alone."

Shigure only looked at him and gave a small grin. "… Be careful."

/Dreamstate/

_"Aww man, Tohru! You have a fever **again**." Aoshi had Tohru's head on her lap. Kyoko came into the living room with an ice pack.  
"You don't have to push yourself so hard." Their mother said, setting the icepack on Tohru's forehead. Aoshi held turned her sister's body so that Tohru was using her legs as a pillow, and allowed their mother to set the icepack on her younger twin's forehead. Aoshi could only shake her head at Tohru's naiveté. "Geez, Tohru, You don't HAVE to overwork yourself to death. Just be yourself, and go at your own pace."  
"Your sister's right, sweetheart, Just go at your own pace. And you'll be just fine." Kyoko said nodding in agreement, and putting an arm around her older twin daughter. Aoshi brightened, as if another thought came to her.  
"Yeah…and someday, you'll catch up."_

/End Dreamstate/

**but… if I don't push myself…even a little bit… I could end up…alone.**

Tohru awakened early the next day, and sat up in the futon that she was sleeping in that night. And glanced around wondering where she was until last night's memories hit her.

_'Oh __no! __How __could __I __fal l__asleep __like __that! __I __still __have __to __dig __out __Mom __and __Dad!'_ Tohru thought to herself frantically. And she quickly got up—not bothering to get her hair out of her face, and opened the wooden shoji doors. But to her surprise, Yuki Sohma was standing outside the door with a couple of plastic bags and smiling.

"Good morning, how are you feeling?" he asked. Tohru could feel herself flushing a rose-pink shade, and started stuttering again.

"Soh… muh.. goo.. –ning…" and started pushing her hair out of the way. A picture was handed to her. A picture of a young man and woman both holding twin girls; the man was holding a girl that looked much like him, and the woman was holding a girl that looked like neither one of her parents, nor her twin sister.

"Here, your picture." Yuki said handing the said framed photo to her.

"Huh?" she asked, taking it…not quite understanding what was going on until after Yuki's next line.

"The rest of your things should be in these bags," he said, pointing to the plastic bags, and continued. "Could you make sure?"

The sudden realization of what he'd done…spazzed her out again.

"EHHH?" she exclaimed, and thought to herself, _'Aoshi __is __definitely __gonna __want __to __know __what's __going __on__… __she __knows __it's __not __like __me __to __spaz __out __so __often__…__'_

"HOW? You dug through the landslide by yourself?"

Yuki only smiled and answered. "Of course not."

"Then how did you-?" she started, but Yuki gave her that look that her sister often gave her when she had a secret that she refused to share.

"It's a secret." And that alone, left Tohru more confused than ever, but she was forgetting her manners.

"Well…ahmm…Thank you. Thank you so much!"

Yuki was leading her down the hall, while replying. "Sure thing. I'll take your things upstairs."

"Huh?" she asked, once again silently apologizing to her sister, for her recent embarrassment, distress, and constant spazzing within the last 24 hours.

He turned to look at her and explained. "The house is a mess, and we're not very used to have women around…but there's a room for you upstairs. You can stay here until your grandfather's remodeling is done."

Tohru could only stare…dumbfounded, and wondering what would she do, if anyone at school found out…even her SISTER…they'd wonder and badger her for answers.

"NO! ASOLUTELY NOT! I couldn't possibly-!" she started to say, but Yuki interrupted, when he stopped to look at her.

"Oh, don't worry. There's a lock on the door." He said, wondering if that was what she was worried about. But his wondering was dodged, when she started shaking her head violently.

"Th-that's not it! I meant…" again she was cut off from her protesting, when she was scared from behind.

"Ah, Tohru, do you like housekeeping?" Shigure asked from behind Tohru. She sweat dropped while giving out an: "EEEP!"

"Like cooking and cleaning." He clarified. It seemed that things were moving way too fast for Tohru to keep up with. And she managed to give a stuttered answer.

"Ahmm...well, yes…I like housekeeping…" she paused and wondered if she WANTED to know the answer to her last question. "why?"

Shigure smiled brightly, and replied in a singsong voice. "WELCOME TO THE SOHMA HOUSE, AS OUR BRAND NEW HOUSEKEEPER!" as soon as he turned around, he started talking out loud, making plans for the new house guest.

"The room hasn't been used in a while, so it's a little stuffy and dusty. OH! We'll also need a spare house key…" and taking in Tohru's state of dress, which was only a yukata that she had borrowed for the night, he turned to Yuki.

"Yuki, why don't you find Tohru something to wear."

Tohru was starting to get dizzy. Everything was moving TOO fast…she wasn't sure what was really going on… until…

Brr Brr Brr Brr Brr Brr Brr

"My cellphone!" and ran back to the futon that she had slept in the previous night. And picked it up to find the called ID said: Aoshi Honda.

"She's gonna kill me if I'm late…" she murmured. And picked up.

"Aoshi?" she asked, and was nearly terrified at her sister's reply.

_"We gotta talk, Kitten."_

"Why?" she asked, and heard her sister's exasperated sigh.

_"Why? Kitten, you know why. I'm getting really weird vibes from you since early yesterday morning to now. That's nearly 24 hours now. Which means that we gotta talk real soon."_

Tohru nearly cried, but knew that her sister would find out sooner or later. However, she'd prefer later…much later after she got settled in.

"Okay…" she finally relented, and was surprised when her older sister went on.

_"Look, __I'm __worried, __Kitten. __I __can't __always __prevent __your __spazz __attacks __when __you're __off __on __your __own __meeting __weird __people__… __or __whatever."_ Aoshi said, as she locked her apartment door behind her and took her apartment stairs by twos, until she got to the bike rack. And unchained her bike from the rack and put her messenger bag behind her, as she kept the phone by her ear.

Tohru understood, and finding Yuki staring at her, she shook her head and mouthed, _"Later."_ Yuki nodded to her request and just leaned against the hallway doorpost until she was done. He heard her sigh.

"All right…Yeah…I've got work tonight too…see you in a bit, then. Be safe, Aoshi." She hung up, and sighed, and looked up at the ceiling, as if seeing something far away… "Be careful, Sis." She murmured. And looked at Yuki.

"You needed me to take a look at the room?" she asked, as he nodded his answer.

As the two of them headed up the stairs and down the hall, Yuki asked the question that was on his mind.

"That was your sister?" he asked her quietly. Tohru nodded sadly.

"Yes, that was Aoshi. She said that we have to talk soon. Because we're twins, she feels that I've been spazzing out a lot… more so than usual. So she knows that something is going on." She replied, knowing that Aoshi would keep in mind that she was staying here temporarily.

Yuki only looked at her. "I see."

Tohru was the first one to bounce back when she remembered then, that she would be a guest here.

_'I __can't __stay __here__… __Them __taking __care __of __me __AND __giving __me __a __room__— __it's __too __much! __I'm __causing __them __too __much __trouble__…__'_ she thought to herself frantically, and when she caught Yuki's eye, he seemed to understand.

"Miss Honda," he said, seemingly understanding her thoughts. "it's alright, we're the ones asking you to stay. You're not a bother... If we didn't want you here, we wouldn't have asked." Then as an afterthought, "Besides, where else are you going to go?"

Tohru couldn't argue at that particular point. She didn't want to ask her sister for shelter over her head, and knowing Aoshi, she would offer it without her having to say anything. And she definately didn't want to be a bother to her two best friends, Uotani Arisa and Hanajima Saki, even if she knew that they would be more than willing to let her stay at either of their places.

"I-I'll try not to be any trouble. Please tell me the rules of this house..." she wasn't able to say more, before Yuki turned around and looked at her.

"Miss Honda," he said calmly, noticing the slight blush on her cheeks. "It's alright. Just be yourself and you'll be just fine."

Tohru nearly stopped in her tracks as those same words- words that her older twin and mother had once spoken, came out of her classmate's mouth. The memory nearly made tears come to her lilac colored eys.

_"...__Just __be __yourself, __and __go __at __your __own __pace."  
"...__Just __go __at __your __own __pace. __And __you'll __be __just __fine."  
_  
_'Yuki...__he's __such __a __mysterious __person...'_

After being given borrowed clothes, she was led to the hallway bathroom to change.

/Meanwhile, with Shigure and Yuki/

"You do realize I was joking about having a 'flower' around, right?" Shigure asked, as he turned to look at Yuki, who met his cousin's anxious look.  
"Really? You were jumping for joy only moments ago," He replied with a straight face.

_Somehow... _"Let's not worry about anything for now. Everything will be alright as long as she doesn't try to HUG anyone." he went on.

_...it all happened so fast._

Once Tohru was dressed and rejoined Yuki in the borrowed clothes, which consisted of a rather big button up shirt and tan cargo pants. And followed him to the spare room, where she would be spending her temperary stay and silently followed him into a spare room on the right side, only stopping at the threshold of the rather stuffy room. The room was a decent size with a single window and a sliding door that led out onto a balcony. She broke out of her memories, and watched as Yuki opened the window to let the room air out.

"Sorry about the smell. This room hasn't been used in a while." he apologized, as he opened the window, and just stared out at the scenery below.

She only waved her hands in front of her in a frantic gesture, while only managing a hasty response.

"Oh no, it's okay. This room should do nicely for a temperary stay. Right?" she asked, as her frantic hand gestures calmed themselves and just held her hands together in front of her. Her face took on a look of concern when she received no reply from her classmate.

All of a sudden, she looked up noticing that pieces of the ceiling were coming down. She cautiously took a few steps back so as to not be in the middle of what was going... or rather, what was about to come down.

Moments later, the ceiling fell in... as well as somebody falling through the hole that was made, startling Tohru, who jumped back until her back hit the wall. She watched in stunned silence, while Yuki only looked boredly at the rather large mess and the person who had apparently broken through the roof. Said person, was a boy- about the same age as herself and Yuki- with unnaturally orange hair and was massaging his shoulder, as if (Tohru guessed) preparing for a fight.

She recognized the signs of a fight coming, because her older twin, Aoshi, did the same things as this boy did in preparation for a fight.

As the boy massaged his shoulder, he smirked at Yuki, who was now leaning against the open window, smirking at the arrogance that this mysterious boy displayed.

"Ready to lose today, Rat Boy?"

"Seriously, must you break something **EVERY** time you come home? Won't you ever learn? **You're. ****Too. ****Weak.**"

_EH? What's going on? Why is orange-head threatening Yuki?_

Just before everything could spin out of control, Tohru, as shocked out of her skin as she was, very slowly sidled backward toward the door, while 'orange-head' as Tohru had silently nicknamed him, developed an anger tick.

"WHAT? If you think that I'm the same as before, then you're in for a world of pain!" 'Orange-head' exclaimed as he clenched his fist in determination. "Brace yourself!"

Tohru had her back to the fight that was just commencing, and was just about to take another step, while deeply buried in her thoughts about keeping away from such martial arts fights like her sister had explained to her, that she didn't notice a piece of wood that she had stepped on... and slipped backward, and twisting her body so that she ended up "hugging" the strange orange headed boy from behind.

"AHHHHHH!"

"AH!"

_And so..._

**"AH!"**_...__the __cat, __unable __to __attend __the __banquet... __was __angry __that __he __had __been __decieved..._

"Yuki... I heard some noise... is Kyou back?" Shigure asked, as he poked his head in through the open doorway, but ended up sweatdropping at the sight that welcomed him.

"Oh my..."  
_  
...__And __was __always __trying __to __catch __the __rat._

Tohru flushed a deep crimson pink, and hurriedly apologized to Kyou...

"I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

... before picking up an orange colored cat... and sweatdropping at the sight.

Yuki could only put his arm against the doorframe and leaned his head against his arm, and asked Shigure in a voice filled with irritation.

"Can we do something with that idiot?"

"Holy... crap..."

Shigure and Yuki both looked in the hallway, was a violet eyed girl, who had visibly surprised eyes, then they slowly softened, as a grin broke out.

"Hi! I'm Aoshi Honda. Tohru's older twin sister."

The only thing that Yuki could think was: _'How __the __hell?'_

* * *

A/N: Hey there Minna-San! This the first chapter to "Doubled Fruits Basket"... so I hoped that you enjoyed it. The next chapter is in Aoshi's POV. I did some editing on this chapter to I still hope you enjoy ^_^

Til next time,  
Peace out,  
~Marina StormFire~


	2. Enter the Older Twin

Doubled Fruits Basket  
By: Marina StormFire

Summary: What if Tohru had an older twin sister, who was physically different and not as naive? Her name… Aoshi Honda. She has Kyoko's personality... but her looks come from her father. She is also protective of her younger twin. So what happens when she finds that Tohru has been staying with the Sohmas?

Disclaimer: I don't own Fruits Basket OR its storyline. I only own my ideas and Other Characters.

**Narrative by character  
Yelling by someone outside the current conversation  
Emphasis  
**_Thoughts or Flashbacks or dreamstates_  
YELLING  
Story

* * *

Chapter 2

(Aoshi's POV)

The barking of a young dog slowly woke a young short-purple-haired girl awake... but not completely, until the barking stopped and she felt a wet tongue licking her face.

"Mmmm.. Aki.. it's too early..." the girl murmured and tried pushing the dog away and putting her pillow over her head. Only to have the dog jump onto her bed and stick her head under the pillow to continue licking the girl's face.

"Oh alright, alright. I'm up. I'm up." the girl grumped, as she pushed her dog gently off her bed, as she sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and stretched her arms out, sighed and looked down on her floor, where her Irish setter was sitting, happily wagging her tail.

"You are one persistent dog. You know that, don't you, Aki?" the girl murmured, more to herself, rather than to her dog. But Aki only 'woof'ed in reply, and tried to lick the girl's face all over again making her laugh out of exasperation with her energetic dog... only making her shove Aki away in an attempt to get out of bed to shower and dress for school.

As soon as she had her underclothes, pants, and camisole on, she went rummaging through her closet for her uniform shirt. As she took her shirt off the hanger, she looked at the clock on her computer desk. It read... 7:15 am.

_'Time to call Ru-Chan... see if she's awake and ready for school.'_ she thought to herself, as she picked up her cellphone and speed-dialed her younger twin.

Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr Brrr

_"Hello?"_ a groggy voice asked. The girl grinned in spite of herself.

"Hey there, Kitten. Are you up, yet?" she asked, as she grabbed her tie off its rack, and started putting it on, leaving it loose around her neck.

There was rustling in the background, which gave the hint that "Kitten" had sat up in bed.

_"What time is it, Aoshi?"_ Kitten asked.

Aoshi chuckled, as she quickly put her notebooks and writing utensils in her messenger bag along with a sketchbook.

"Almost time for you to leave for school. I'll meet you there, alrighty?" Aoshi said, as she listened for a response. None.

"Kitten? You okay?" There was the sound of someone falling on the ground and muffled _"oomph."_

"Tohru? Are you alright?"

A pause, then:

_"Uh… yeah, I'm alright. I'll see at the school, sis."_

Aoshi laughed, but calmed down long enough to tell her younger twin, "Be safe, Tohru. I love you."

_"I love you too, sis. I gotta go. See you at school."_ and hung up her cell. As soon as Aoshi hung up, she sighed and stared at the mirror in her hall mirror, and just decided to sans the school tie today. Grabbed her rollerblades and messenger bag and her backsack that she always brought her spare tennis shoes in, her apartment key... headed out the door to put her skates on.

As she skated out of apartment complex, she waved to her neighbors and their kids.

"Aoshi-nee-chan! Have a good day at school!" two 12-year-old boys shouted as she skated by and waved at them.

"You too, Koji, Koichi **(1)**!" she shouted back, as they headed on their way to the local middle school.

Then from above her, a middle-aged woman threw open her apartment windows and dropped something down that Aoshi instinctively caught and stopped and looked up. And saw the woman smile down at her and said:

"It's your bento, Shi-Chan! I bet you didn't take the time to make yours this morning." Aoshi blushed prettily and grinned.

"Arigatou, Mrs. Yamaguchi! Give Mr. Yamaguchi my regards, please? And thank you again for the bento!" She hollered up, and after tucking it quickly into her backsack and skated away, all the while, hearing Mrs. Yamaguchi laughing at her antics. She smiled.

Today was gonna turn out GREAT. At least the 2nd-year high schooler thought so.

She closed her eyes in bliss as the wind whipped by, her bangs swaying into her eyes... feeling serene and quiet, this was the feeling she knew she always got when she was feeling the twin connection. The connection to Tohru, her little twin sister. The poor girl was distraught when their mother died and she barely knew their father.

She could feel Tohru's serenity seeping into the connection... suddenly there was surprise and then one of her spaz attacks in the connection. Aoshi had to sigh in exasperation. Her sister really was a piece of work. Spazzing out at the slightest surprise; Then there was embarrassment added into the mix.

_'Oh boy... today's gonna be one hell of a ride.'_ She thought to herself, as she came up to some of her classmates, who called her freak... she didn't care. She only hollered back, "Oh yeah? Try lookin' in a mirror yourself!"

The classmates that called Aoshi a freak, were girls that usually wore heavy make-up and tried to make themselves noticeable to the Prince of Kaibara High School, Yuki Sohma. She rolled her eyes, though she knew she would look really pretty in a girls' uniform, she just didn't care for them. She preferred to look like a boy..., which only served to make the boys notice her more. But if they tried asking her out, she'd say that they could go out... but only as friends. As she had no interest in anyone at the present time. As she only had a year left of school, before she flew the coop and went off to college.

And she had hoped to meet some cool guy, who would except all of her. She looked up at the shaded trees as she skated past them, and daydreamed of her dream guy. Someone with dark hair… yet, someone with kind eyes. And it wouldn't hurt if he was handsome to boot. She nearly grinned at her own daydreams and sighed, exasperated with herself. There was no such thing as a guy THAT handsome.

So wrapped up was Aoshi, in her thoughts, that as she skated around a corner and bumped into someone so hard, she lost her balance and her legs skated out from under her. With her eyes wide in surprise, her hands flew behind her to lessen the impact that she'd make, as she landed on the cement sidewalk.

"OOF!" she exclaimed, as she landed on the concrete, and looked up at the person that she had unintentionally bumped... or rather, skated, into.

"I'm so sorry, Miss..." a voice started, yet trailed off. Aoshi narrowed her eyes, when the sun glared at her from up above and saw the outline of a young man leaning down to help her up. She blinked her eyes, reached out to grasp the man's hand, and with some trouble getting her balance while on her skates, berated herself calmly for not paying much attention to the people around her.

"No, it's my fault. I should've been paying attention to who was around me." Aoshi replied, as she finally got her balance and looked up into the man's face. He was a young man that looked to be not much older than she... roughly 19 or 20 years old, and had on well-worn jeans and had a light blue button-down shirt with the top few buttons undone- revealing a leather necklace with no adornment around his tanned neck, and the sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms. His eyes were a golden-brown color, like new copper...

"Are you alright then?" he asked, as he steadied her, as she skated forward. Aoshi nodded.

"Yes, I'm alright," Aoshi said, as she skated back to where she'd dropped her messenger bag. "Thank you for helping me up. And I'm sorry for skating into you... ahhh..." she trailed off, not knowing what was coming over her, and saw the young man grinning at her... she nearly melted.

"Akira. Akitaka Akira. A pleasure to meet you, Miss...?" he asked the violet-eyed girl in front of him. "Aoshi. Honda Aoshi. It's nice to meet you too." she replied with a smile, and on looking down at her watch, looked at him apologetically. "I'm sorry, but I have to get to school. It was nice meeting you, Akitaka-san!" she said, as she skated away, leaving him looking after her curiously.

Aoshi was feeling a little lightheaded, and knew it was from Tohru. Something made her spaz out and now she was embarrassed, and she was DEFINATELY going to have a looooong talk with her little sister. Several minutes later, when she came skating passed the school gates, she heard catcalls and wolf-whistles from the guys and calls of "BITCH!" and "SLUT!" came from the girls. She rolled her eyes and thought, _'Some people will always be idiots and horny asses.'_

She slowly skated toward the lockers, where she sat on the steps to take her skates off and put them in her locker in exchange for her school shoes. As she put her school shoes on, her friends came up and smiled at them as they came up to her. "Hey, Aoshi, we're gonna be hangin' around the skate park after school. You wanna come with?" Aoshi shook her head apologetically. "Nope. I've got work after school. But I've got time off work on the weekend, so I'm free then. How 'bout then?"

Her friends looked at each other. And a guy with longish brown hair and dark forest-green eyes spoke up. "Sounds like a plan... unless you want to bring your sister along?" Aoshi shook her head. "Nope. Something tells me that work and graduating high school are the only things on her 'Top Priorities' list. And no matter how many times I tell her to live a little and take some time off work to play like a little kid, she'll only shake her head. Besides, Tohru isn't exactly into skating or biking or anything. Me? Now I'm an active little kid. Thanks for the invite, Kei." she said with a smile, as she stood up and put on her backsack, shouldered her messenger bag, and finally turned to put her padlock back on her locker. Apparently, during her first year of high school, some girls-who were jealous of her for some mysterious reason, had decided to play some nasty pranks on her and some of them were targeted at her locker. And with her request to her teachers for a padlock for her locker, they had consented when she told them of the 'anonymous' attacks at her via her locker.

"Alright then! See you then, Aoshi!" Kei replied, as he and the others of her friends walked away toward their classes. Smiling to herself, she headed up the stairs to her own classroom... until she came upon a scene that nearly set her blood to boiling. Some fangirls were harassing her sister.

"ALRIGHT, MISS HONDA! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

_'Good lord above... I can HEAR them from all the way down the hall...'_ Aoshi thought to herself, as she slowly walked up to the scene.

"WHY DID YOU AND YUKI COME TO SCHOOL TOGETHER? GIVE US A FULL AND COMPLETE EXPLANATION! WELL?"

"Yeah yeah!"  
"That's right."  
"Full AND complete!"

_'Ah... that's what that's about... She and alleged PRINCE Yuki came to school together. Those girls are SO overreacting...'_

"W-well… i-it was j-just a coincidence! D-don't you think you're overreacting?" Aoshi heard her sister reply and knew that -again- she'd have to back her sister. Not that she's complaining or anything, but things like this got annoying after a while.

"YOU IDIOT! OVERREACTING? IF COINCIDENCES LIKE THAT WERE LEGAL, WE WOULDN'T NEED THE POLICE!"

"Yeah yeah!"  
"That's right!"  
"Indeed!"

Aoshi winced at the loudness, when she heard a nearby teacher yell at the loud fangirls, **"QUIET IN THE HALLS!"**

And Aoshi was getting fed up and as she set a gentle hand on her younger twin's, glared at the girls giving her little sister trouble. "Give it a rest already. You really DON'T need to be in Tohru's face about it." She finally said, as she glared with a deadpanned face.

"LOOK YOU! JUST BECAUSE YUKI SOHMA IS KIND ENOUGH TO HANG OUT WITH YOU…IT'S NO REASON FOR YOU TO GET A SWELLED HEAD!"

Okay... now Aoshi had HAD it. She started to get a headache from the dumb girl in front of her and tightened her hand on her sister gently, knowing that the poor girl was near tears... and letting her know that she was right there. "Back. Off." she said, inwardly glad to see that the stupid girls in front of her and her sister looked like they were about to pass out, but the ringleader, apparently, wanted to lord over her and responded with a "Hmph."

But before Aoshi actually HIT those wannabe _GIRLFRIENDS_ of Yuki Sohma. Frankly, she couldn't see what was special about him. He was just another guy... but she knew that there was an air of mystery about him. And knew that he never let anyone near him. So she just watched him.

But just then...

"HEY!"

Never had Aoshi ever thanked hers and Tohru's best friends for ever having excellent timing as right now. She quietly watched, as the blond girl slowly turn around, and started to visibly shake when she came face-to-face with... Arisa Uotani and Saki Hanajima. Aoshi made a silent mental note to herself to thank them later for showing up when they did and prevented her little sister from crying.

"Ah! Good morning, Uo, Hana…" Tohru greeted. Aoshi nodded a greeting, still a tad peeved at the idiocy of the fangirl population of Kaibara High School.

"W-what's this? Threatening us with your gangster buddy, huh? Don't think that we're finished with you just because of this Yankee!"

The blond girl just HAD to open her mouth and agitate Aoshi even more... She really needed to HIT something. But didn't have to... she'd almost forgotten Saki... the **Wave Girl **as she was notoriously known as. She knew for a fact, that it was a really bad idea to antagonize Saki.

"I could **BEEEEEEEP** them with electro-poison waves…" Hana let the sentence hang, and the four fangirls turned tail and ran as if the hounds of hell were right on their heels. Aoshi wanted to clutch her sides from the way they were aching. She just wanted to laugh right then and there, at the way the girls had reacted at Saki's threat. It was better to be a friend to Saki Hanajima, than be her enemy. There was no telling on how severe her semi-idle threats could be.

Feeling her little twin sister sigh with relief and releasing pent-up stress, Aoshi hugged her sister from behind.

"Rough day already, Kitten?" Aoshi asked, good-natured humor lacing her voice. She heard her sister sigh and sadly nod her head slowly. Aoshi released her younger twin from the hug and moved to stand with their two best friends. But caught sight of a somewhat familiar head of grayish hair and a pair of dark gray eyes that stared at her. Her eyes grew slightly, but then softened her expression.

_'He's hiding something… I can almost see… THERE!' _Just as she saw the outline of something hidden deep within the alleged prince's eyes, she heard her sister's reply.

"Yes…" Tohru replied, and noticing the time, continued, "I'll tell you in Home Economics, okay?" after getting a nod from Arisa and Saki, Aoshi was only vaguely cognizant of her sister's plain lilac-coloured eyes on her, and could only nod in Yuki's direction, to which he responded with a nod in return.

"Sis? You okay?"

Aoshi furrowed her brows together but only gave a vague "Mm-hmm." And turned to Tohru, who looked worried. She knew that Tohru was worried and also that not very many people liked her because of a lot of miscellaneous reasons. But the primary reasons were that she didn't much care for the school dress code and her attitude for the school rules in general. She knew that that she had to keep her sister from worrying too much about her.

"Hey, I'll be alright. Just got some things on my mind. Don't worry so much about me. Alright?" Aoshi attempted to assure her twin sister, and to her relief, Tohru let it go. The four girls decided that too much time had been wasted, and went off to their two different homerooms. Aoshi to the second-year's homeroom and Tohru, Arisa, and Saki to the first-year's homeroom. This –luckily for them- was HER first-year's homeroom teacher, Ms. Mayuko Shiraki-sensei.

Aoshi knew she'd have to make the time, sometime today, maybe during lunch? - To stop by and see, her favorite sensei… but for now, she decided to mess around with her homeroom teacher, and skip first period. And since her second period class was study hall, decided to go directly to the roof of the school and work on designing her own personal projects, and sketch up some designs that she had in mind for her own clothing or architectural designs.

As she set her things down in a semi-shady corner of the roof, and got out her sketchbook, colored pencils and square eraser, began to sketch out her designs that were part celtic-part oriental in design on a myriad of regular clothes. Oriental dragon on a haori… soon had celtic-knots in the outlining of the scales, wings, and tail. When she finished with the drawing, she held the sketchbook in her hands… holding it away from her and staring at it… impressed with herself for her ingenious.

She flipped the page to another, and worked on another sketch. This one from some fantasy world that she'd planned on making into a comic book someday, where a navy/sky blue wyvern was curled up, and basking in the sunlight in front of what looked like a mountainside temple on a seashore. The sunlight was bouncing off the scales to reflect a variation of blue hues on the ground and dancing into the sky. Celtic-knots outlined the temple in pale blue and dark grey for the mountainous background and light grey for the course and stony ground.

The whole of the picture was on the back of a medium light-darkish grey kimono, with a bit of the picture spreading outwards toward the sides of the kimono. On the front though, there were little sketched drawings of different colored wyverns in different poses. A golden was rising from the waters with a fish in its mouth. Intertwined together in mating, were a Black and Red. And a Green was having fun, curling this way and that among a Blue, a Purple, and Magenta… while they in turn, curled around, weaved their way in and out among each other, or trying to get out of the knot that they'd eventually be.

Aoshi nearly giggled at the thought of what KIND of knot these imaginary wyverns were gonna be in IF they couldn't get out of it. She flipped to yet another blank sketchpage, and began drawing several small varitations of a normal japanese temple in a more fantastical and mythical light throughout the page, even getting so far as to adding spires and such to them.

All of sudden, the sound of the bell ringing startled Aoshi from her sketching so much, that she'd smeared grey color over her sketch. When she looked up, she was startled at what time it was, she had been so lost in her sketching that she'd lost all track of time. On looking at her watch, she exhaled a breath of relief. The bell had rung for second hour… for her, it was study hall, for now, she had time to kill. And continued to work on her designs… or daydream…

She glanced up sharply at that particular thought. _'Where the hell did that come from?'_ she thought to herself, and leaned back against the fenced barricade surrounding the roof, separating the edge of the roof from any student stupid enough to want to jump… and stared up at the clear blue of the sky, only distantly thinking of the young man that she'd skated into earlier… _Akitaka Akira_.

The very memory of his near heart-stopping grin was crystal-clear in her memory and made her want to melt all over again. She remembered the way he looked with the top buttons of his shirt undone and not tucked into his worn jeans… the strength of his hand as he had helped her up earlier made her imagine what kind of strength he'd have if she were to be in his arms…

Aoshi abruptly shook her head at the imagery that was so vivid she had to blink her eyes several times to get her bearings. _'Oh man…'_ she thought to herself, setting an arm over her eyes and sighed. _'I'm turning into one of those crazed "Prince Yuki" fangirls… But geez, he's got beautiful eyes… like amber…'_

She took her arm away from her eyes and shook her head once more to clear it, until she could no longer vividly see his enthralling bright copper-gold eyes before her own. As she stared down at her smeared sketch, she began the tedious task of erasing the smudge of grey from the sketch-page. Growling to herself, as- from time to time- she found herself envisioning herself in this stranger's strong arms and. It aggravated her to keep seeing his face pop up so vividly, it seemed that he was really there. His dark hair that was parted slightly to the side and falling into his amber-like eyes, his high cheekbones, and straight nose- gave him the look of some kind of model… not to mention that heart-stopping grin of his. And she wondered what his face would look like when he smiled.

When Aoshi stopped for a moment to imagine it, she could've sworn that her heart had completely stopped for a second. The way his face transformed at that vivid picture only made her heart beat faster. "Good grief… who am I thinking about…? Some guy I don't even know…? Why am I even thinking about him in the first place?" she asked herself, not knowing that her future would be with the said man that she was currently thinking about.

/Somewhere else/

A dark haired young man sneezed all of a sudden, and stared up at the sky, as he wiped the sweat from his face. _'Someone's talking about me behind my back… Though, I wonder… Will I meet with Aoshi-chan again… soon, I hope…'_

"Yo, Akitaka! Gonna stand there all day or gonna get back to work?" a worker called to him, snapping said man out of his thoughts about a certain purple-haired girl dressed in a boys' uniform. He shook his head, and grinned at the other man.

"Yeah... I'm just takin' a short break, Aizawa." 'Akitaka' replied, as he took up his water bottle and drank a bit, before capping it again.

Aizawa Takahiro was a 25-year-old blonde haired green-eyed worker who had known Akira's family since he himself was a young boy. He was currently on his way to the main contractor's office with drafts, while Akira was working on cutting down some lumber that was to be shipped to some worksite in uptown Tokyo. And he would be working some on the worksite too.

Takahiro just looked at his young friend. Something was really off… as if something happened before he came into work. He glanced at the main contractor's building and then back at his young friend. _'Something's up and I've got plenty of time to kill before these building drafts need to be sent up to the Boss.' _He walked over to a steel stool and sat on it, leaning the plastic cylindrical container against a half-built brick wall corner in the shade.

Akira could only look at his friend. "You look like you want to say something, Taka." He commented absently, as he put his safety glasses back on, as he prepared to get back to cutting down the lumber. Taka only nodded silently, and watched Akira cut down the lumber to specific lengths… until the younger man finally sighed, and turned off the electric saw and took off his safety glasses.

"Okay… spill. What do you want to talk about?" he finally asked, as he took up his water bottle from the worktable behind him.

"That's a damn good question, Akira." Taka muttered, as he watched the man take a drink of water and nearly cough up the water that he drank.

"Whaaaat?" Akira's gold-brown eyes widened with surprise. "what are you talking about?"

Taka raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, what am I talking about? I'm talking about what was with you when you came in to work this morning? You came in not quite focused for work, but not quite…I don't know… here…" he tried to explain, as Akira's surprise slowly seeped away when he was reminded of what… or rather WHO he had been thinking about when he'd clocked into work a couple hours earlier.

"Would you believe me," Akira asked, watching his friend's face carefully. "If I told you the reason WHY I was in a semi-dazed state, this morning?"

Taka closed his eyes to think about it… WOULD he believe Akira's reason for not being focused on work? Truth be told, he'd be very surprised if it turned out to be that a girl was involved. For as long as he'd known Akitaka Akira, the younger man just never really showed an interest in the opposite gender since his middle school days, and since then, he'd been reserved… no matter how much attention he now garnered from younger AND older women.

"That depends on what could POSSIBLY put you into a semi-dazed state…" he murmured, not daring to look at his young friend, who grinned.

"I met someone… rather interesting this morning while I was on my way to work…" he started, before he saw Taka's eyes widen in surprise… then…

"YOU WHAT!" Taka exclaimed, not sure whether to believe it Akira's reason or not… It WAS hard to believe that someone had managed to intrigue his young friend.

"You heard me, Taka," Akira told him, smirking. "I met someone."

"Holy shit… someone tell me that the end of the world is coming soon and that I'm dreaming." He groaned out, as he threw his head back so that he was staring at the slightly overcast sky. He could almost feel Akira grinning at him.

"Nope… fat chance of the apocalypse coming anytime soon, and you're not dreaming." Akira told his friend, as he took up his water bottle for a quick swig of the cool liquid. Taka slowly sat up to study the dark haired young man that was his friend. Taking in the spark of mischief in the dark amber-brown eyes and the relaxed grin on the man's face, he had to admit… to himself at least, NOBODY could bring out the mischief in his friend's eyes or the relaxed grin on his face… maybe this mystery person could be what Akira needed most in his life. At least to his own experience, no one was able to bring out Akira's mischievous persona or even make him relaxed enough when thinking of a new construction project that needed doing or some such. Taka finally sighed.

"Alright, you win," he finally relented, and was rewarded with a chuckle from Akira. "who's the lucky chit that you met this morning?"

Akira sighed, looking up at the sky as he imagined the dark purple of the girl's eyes. "Her name is Honda Aoshi. And from her school attire, I'd hazard an obvious bet that she doesn't abide by school rules." He chuckled at the memory. A BLIND MAN would be an idiot NOT to have noticed that the person in a boy's uniform was actually a GIRL. But he had noticed, when she skated into him… for one brief moment, her chest had rubbed up against his own before her feet skated out from under her… and her scent… she smelled like peaches and orange blossoms.

Taka looked at his friend, when the name "Honda" was mentioned. "Honda… Honda… where've I heard that name before…?" he wondered aloud, knowing for certain that he'd heard of the name somewhere… just not exactly sure where. "So how'd you meet this kid, Akira?"

"She bumped… or rather- scratch that, _skated _into me as she was rounding a corner." He explained, as he picked up his straightedge and pencil to mark off certain lengths on the piece of wood he was cutting down to size. Taka chuckled.

"Oh-ho! Caught'cha by surprise, eh?" he asked, grinning. Akira nodded.

"Yup… what really caught me by surprise was the fact that she was wearing the boys' uniform of her school. And to tell the truth," he turned and looked his friend in the eye. "she actually looked pretty damn good in it."

"So you like this kid?" Taka asked, as he snagged Akira's water bottle for a swig of water. Akira closed his eyes and wondered if he actually LIKED the girl that skated into him. "From the way you talk about her… she's a rather interesting individual." He heard Taka say.

Akira opened his copper-brown eyes to look into his friend's blue-green eyes. "I'm not sure. I don't know enough about her to call it 'LIKE'… but she IS interesting. And I WOULD like to get to know her. But the chances of meeting her again are slim to nothing. In a city this big, how would I be able to see her?"

Taka nodded his head, giving in to defeat. "Hmmm… you're right. The chances WOULD be pretty slim." He thought over their conversation, and a thought occurred to him:

"So… she wears the boys' uniform for her school, eh? How'd ya know she wasn't a 'he'?" Taka asked, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

"She skated into me, you figure it out, Jerk." He retorted, snatching back his water bottle and placing it back underneath his workspace. Taka thought about that one sentence, then grinned, as Akira blushed slightly and glanced at the sky. There was no doubt about it. Whoever this kid was, had really stirred an interest in his old time friend.

/Back at Kaibara High School/

As Aoshi held her sketchbook, she felt the oncoming sensation of her nose twitching and pulled her sketchbook out of her face as she gave out a violent sneeze all of a sudden… hard enough that her head started pounding with a beginnings of a migraine.

_'Oh man… somebody's talking behind my back… I just know it. I hope it's NOT Suzume though. I am SO gonna kick her ass.' _She thought to herself, as she shivered at the thought of her lesbian friend. After she wiped her nose on a handkerchief she had stowed in her pocket, she continued working on her sketch, until she chanced a look at her store-bought watch and saw that she had 20 minutes before the next bell rang. Aoshi sighed, and after setting her sketchbook and pencil aside for a moment, stretched and worked the kinks out of her neck and shoulders.

"Mmmmm… that was quite a nice break from the morning screeching I usually get from the naggin' homeroom teach." Aoshi murmured to herself, as she stretched, and sighed her relief. She quickly put away her colored pencils in their pencil case and sketchbook in her messenger bag, removed her uniform jacket, and stood up to get the blood flowing in her body.

As soon as she finished doing 15 low, middle, and high sidekicks for both of her legs… she remembered the day she met her martial arts sensei. Aoshi gave a silent 'thank you' for helping her control her uncontrollable rage years ago, only days after their father died. She closed her eyes and sighed. _'Poor little sister,'_ Aoshi thought to herself, as she continued her basic katas to help the blood flow throughout her body. _'She barely even knew our father.'_

Getting caught up, she soon moved on to combination punch strikes and kicks, to which eventually, she lost track of time… until a high-pitched sound pierced the air.

B-didebeep! B-didebeep! B-didebeep!

In the middle of a high-jump roundhouse kick, Aoshi was startled, and misstepped. For just as she was falling backwards, her reflexes acted, before she could think of what to do to avoid hurting herself. Stretching her hands over her head and bending her back, kicked her legs up and over her body until her feet touched the ground. She then used bent her arms and pushed her upper body upward so that she was in a full standing position, with one leg in front of her and the other behind to keep her balanced.

Aoshi lifted her right wrist to look at the time. _'8:50.'_ Her watch said. Sighing once more, she wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her uniform. _'Only 5 minutes till the bell rings.'_ Sighing, she quickly turned toward the corner where she laid her things, and gathered them up. _'Time to torture another teacher.'_ She thought, grinning to herself mentally. The home economics teacher was a tad high-strung, and would easily be agitated… especially by an older twin who could be a smartass whenever she felt like it. _'Eh… such is my high school life… Only one more year till I graduate and fly to coop to a nearby college. And maybe I'll be able to take care of us both…'_

She didn't dare finish that thought. She didn't want her younger twin to know that she was afraid. She had to be strong for them both. And she was scared of the responsibilities that came with taking care of them both. But she had a good part-time job that paid well, and a kind landlord, who understood the circumstances and was flexible enough to discuss the rent-payment options. Her boss at work, was nice too, and understood that Aoshi had to work hard to keep up on paying her bills on time. And every other week or so, or even every third month- though the times were inconsistent, she'd given Aoshi a bonus check for the hard work.

She sighed once more and hung her head… allowing her bangs to fall into her face as she stared, unseeingly out over the school grounds passed the gates... wishing that both, Katsuya and Kyoko Honda- their parents, were still alive.

Roughly shaking her head of the images of her parents from her mind, she took out a Home Economics Notebook and a pencil, that she stuck behind her ear… and as she shouldered her messenger bag, opened her notebook to a random page. And looked through some recipes that she'd found on the public library computer and had jotted down.

She read over the recipes, as she started toward the door that led back inside the school… headed toward her 3rd period class: Home Economics.

After setting her notebook on a kitchen counter safely out of the way from the stovetop area, she donned a simple plain light purple kitchen apron, and started making small notes in the margins of her recipe notebook.

Not long after she started setting up her part of the kitchen, Arisa, Hana, and Tohru came through the door. And on spotting her older twin, Tohru practically skipped to the counter to give her sister a hug in greeting. And the three teens got down to business, while their home ec teacher calling role (and Aoshi murmuring snarky comments, making Arisa snort with laughter- as she tried to muffle it).

After role was called and everyone got down to making their assignments, Tohru went on to explain what had gone on earlier that morning. And how she ended up walking to school with alleged Prince of their high school, Yuki Sohma.

Aoshi watched her little sister from the corner of her eye as Tohru closed her eyes and blushed.

"I was really nervous. Yuki's soo handsome… I just froze up." Tohru said, as she blushed. Aoshi chuckled with humor in the tone, and took out her fried fish from the oven, and set the fish on 4 dinner plates, for Arisa, Hana, Tohru, and herself.

"Most girls think that, Tohru. But you on the other hand, are completely honest about it." She said, and added a few spices and sliced pineapple to her fried fish.

"Hmm… I detect strange waves emanating from him." Hanajima stated as she put the knife away back in its covering.

"Time for Hana's wave report." Aoshi heard Uotani state in a bored tone, as she continued with her hunt for certain kitchen equipment and ingredients, but listened intently.

"'Strange'?" Tohru asked, clearly puzzled.

"I don't really know how else to explain it." Hana said.

"What's to explain? The guy's a walking mystery," Uo said, then explained. "I heard that a 2nd year girl confessed her love to him once… but when she tried to hug him, he pushed her away and high-tailed it. Totally freaked her out."

Aoshi saw her sister sweat drop. "I-I didn't know that. I wonder why."

She also knew that there was something near abnormal about alleged "Prince" Yuki Sohma. When she locked eyes with him earlier she saw a chained creature… from the vivid shape of the creature, she'd have to guess that it was some kind of rodent… either a rat or a mouse, some animal of the nature. But one thing she knew for sure was that Yuki Sohma wasn't by any means, NORMAL.

"Exactly," Hana went on. "it's the mystery that makes him so intriguing."

The Home Economics teacher spotted the four… or rather three of them talking and was walking over to see what was being done about their assignments.

"You three! Move your hands, not your mouths!" she said, as she looked over the lavished meals. "Oh… oh my."

Uo only looked like she was gonna fall asleep any minute. "Hey lobster face. Can we go now, or do you need help to extract your foot from your mouth?" Aoshi tried to muffle her snort of laughter, but could only grin to show her humour.

The teacher was knocked out of her stupor, pointed at the lavished food, and exclaimed, "Who do you think you're fooling? Miss Honda made those for you!"

Aoshi grinned at the Home Ec. Teacher. "Which one?" she asked snarkily, as Arisa laughed at the retreating back of the teacher, who nearly passed out, but managed to walk away and tend some other students who weren't as good with their cooking. As soon as the teacher walked away to help some other students, Uo then turned to the twins.

"Oh hey, I'm going shopping with Hana on my way home today. Why don't the two of you come with? Oh wait… you're working today, aren't you, Tohru?" she asked the twin between Hana and herself.

Aoshi said nothing, only listened to the conversations around her taking place. Absently, she wondered what the mysterious person from earlier that morning was up to, but roughly shook her head, shaking free of those thoughts. But instead, concentrated on the image tied… no, CHAINED to one Yuki Sohma's soul. She pondered what it could mean… some kind of curse maybe? She couldn't be sure. But she wasn't going to pry into his family business… or even HIS business for that matter. She tuned back into the conversation, right on time to. For Arisa was just asking Tohru if they were still living with their Grandpa Honda.

"Actually, she is. I'm not… I've managed to get my own small two-bedroom apartment, and grandpa Honda was willing to co-sign for me." She said, and smiled a comforting smile at her younger twin, knowing that she was living in a tent, rather than at their grandfather's home. And somehow feeling as if she missed something, replayed the vague conversation, when Arisa had asked Tohru if she was working that day.

Aoshi's eyes widened all of a sudden, and looked at Uo as she said, "Ah! I almost forgot about work… actually, I'm working today too. I've got some good recipes that I practiced with yesterday. And if my boss says that they're fit for the diner menu, we'll be adding those."

Though it looked like Arisa and Saki were disappointed that she and Tohru were working, they said nothing.

Soon, the class ended. And Aoshi set her cooking into a bento box to eat later... _'Hmmm... maybe during my break... and perhaps save some for dinner...'_ the teen girl thought to herself.

As the day wore on, Aoshi drifted in and out during her teacher's lesson lectures, and took notes on the major points that were discussed so that she'd be able to look back at her text book and take more detailed notes. And all too soon, the school came to an end. She quickly took out her cell and text messaged Tohru.  
_I'll walk with you as far as I can to work, okay? - Shi-Chan_

A moment later, a response from Tohru came.  
_Okay_. _- Ru-Chan_

Aoshi grinned slightly and tucked the mobile phone in her pants pocket and put on her roller blades, helmet, elbow and knee pads and her skating gloves. Turning slightly she put on her backsack that contained her regular footwear and the bento box from her home ec class and small pencil/pen box. After she had that on, she grabbed her messenger bag and slid that over her helmeted **(2)** head, stood and skated away at a decent pace, until she heard her younger twin call out from a little ways from behind her. Slightly adjusting her weight, she turned to look behind her and found Tohru running ahead of... was that the so-called 'Prince' Yuki behind her sister? She gave a small grin to her twin.

"Had a small exchange with the Prince of the school, Kitten?" Aoshi asked, as her sister stopped to catch her breath and tiredly nodded her head. As soon as her sister was breathing normally again, she looked like she wanted to ask a question.

"Hey, Sis?" Tohru questioned, looking unsure. The slightly older girl looked at her twin.

"Hmm? What is it, Kit?"

"Well… I was just wondering, what did you see… when you, ahmm…"

"What? When I looked into his eyes?"

A silent nod was Aoshi's answer. Aoshi looked up at the darkening sky at sunset.

It wasn't very often that Tohru asked what she saw through other's eyes. What people were like by their soul. But there was never a concise answer to her questions. A very quiet sigh nearly escaped her lips. Thinking about what she was going to say. She kinda thought her ability to read a person's heart and soul was a blessing and a curse. She judged a person by the colors or animals that closely represented the person... but she also judged them by trying to get to know them. It was mainly how she got to know some of her classmates, but they didn't know about her ability. The only ones who knew, aside from Tohru, were Arisa and Saki. She kept her ability mostly to herself.. and thought to herself at the time and still thought: _'Maybe I'm testing them on their trustworthiness...'_

There was just no concrete answer to Tohru's curious question about one Yuki Sohma, the current reigning Prince of Kaibara High School. She finally answered.

"Hmm… I'm not really sure what I saw, but if I saw what I think I saw… I don't think that would warrant any interference or questions from me on any account."

They didn't speak much more because they were now at the crossroads where they were to take different routes to their respective workplaces.

"Be careful on your way home, Tohru. And try and rest a little while you're working. You can't really afford to get yourself sick." Aoshi chided, as she hugged her younger twin. Tohru hugged her back.

"I will, sis. Be safe."

Aoshi watched her sister walk toward the company building that she worked at, and sighed. She truly hoped that her sister would be okay and felt a little guilt tug at her heart. She didn't REALLY say that she looked like she was gonna get sick, but still. She worried.

As she walked up to the employees entrance near the back of the building, she happened to look across the street and watched the workers at the construction site- for a moment, as they moved bits of lumber, sheet metal, and other building materials to their specific destinations.

But remembering her own job, shook her head and opened the door to the back room where she could change from her school uniform into the diner uniform- which consisted of black slacks and a light blue button-down short-sleeve shirt and, of course, a white apron that tied around the waist. And as soon as she tied the laces on her tennis shoes, she focused solely on her shift. But just as she was coming into the diner proper, her boss stopped her.

Aoshi was confused. "Is there a problem, Ms. Kusagawa?"

Ms. Kusagawa Makiko was a woman in her late-30's to early-40's, and was a kind, understanding woman, that had teal-grey colored eyes, and had a plump figure as well as a motherly disposition.

Her manager shook her head. "No. There's no problem, Shi-Chan. However, I'll be needing you to work a little later than usual tonight. We have a full house as it is, and I'm not sure if anyone else on the same shift is going to bail out just because." The older woman sighed, and her face showed how tired she was.

But Aoshi could probably guess why that was. Their diner could probably be called a restaurant to any restaurateur's standards, and was a place that often held catering events like birthday parties, bridal showers, and wedding receptions.

"I'll work as late as I can. I still have to do my schoolwork for tomorrow..." she trailed off, knowing that there wasn't much to say about school. Her manager knew well enough that she was still in school.

Her manager nodded. And pointed to a corner table on the far side of the room by the windows faceing the construction site.

"I'll need you to take care of those two gentlemen in that corner and see to whatever needs to be taken care of." she told the young girl. Aoshi nodded. She'd do her job and if she was truthful with herself, she'd as good as admit that she enjoyed it. The pay was good, and the other employees were as courteous to her as she was to them. There were even times that they had a little fun at another employee's expense. But all was taken into good humor.

Aoshi walked across the room zigzagging in and around the tables and chairs, careful not to trip, as she took out her pad and pencil, ready to take down the orders.

But as she neared the table, one of the two men looked familiar to her... dark hair that looked to fall into the man's eyes- which (though she could only see one of them) were a striking gold-amber color. She nearly tripped because of the sudden realization that it was indeed the man that she'd skated into earlier that very day.

Just then, the man that she'd skated into, turned her way, and his surprise was visible. She grinned at him.

"Hello again, Akitaka-san." she greeted, even as he shook his head to shake off his stupor.

"Hello yourself, Aoshi-san." Akira Akitaka replied, grinning, even as his amber-like eyes twinkled with mischief.

The man seated across from Akira glanced between her and Akira, looking rather perplexed... and surprised. Aoshi shook her head and got down to business.

"So, what can I get you gentlemen?"

Akira shook his head and gave thier orders to the girl, who grinned at him and winked... letting him know that they would talk a little later. As soon as Aoshi left, he let out a slight chuckle. Takahiro only looked flabbergasted and started stuttering, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Th-THAT was the girl that skated into you, Akira?" he stuttered, as he leaned on his arms on the diner table. Looking at Akira's face, but finding it turned to gaze out after Aoshi, who was currently at the entryway of the diner and leading a couple with their kids into another part of the dining area and watching how she handled a rather rambunctious little boy with the couple, sternly, yet cheerfully, as they were settled in to decide on their orders and wait for someone to come by and take their orders.

"Yeah. That's her, Taka. That's her," he murmured, as he kept his golden gaze on Aoshi's back as she went to and fro from one part of the diner to another, constantly passing a co-worker and exchanging a few words and occasionally laughing at something someone said. "though I had no idea that she worked here..."

"Well, now you do, Akira." Takahiro replied, wondering how long his friend planned on watching this girl... until he got an evil idea to tease his long-time friend. "Fantasizing while watching a girl you don't know, Akira?" he teased, as his friend- startled, looked back at him with a faint blush on his face. He wouldn't have been surprised if he hit the nail on the head.

"N-NO! Why would I do that about a girl I hardly know?" Akira stammered out, as he tried to get out of his mesmerized state of mind to pay attention to his friend rather than the girl that he met earlier in the day. All he remembered from his day at work, was that time seemed to speed up, until he and Takahiro finally clocked out and they'd come from across the street from the main contractor's worksite/building to this place that Takahiro had mentioned a couple days before, that he wanted to try the food here. And the next thing he knew, was that, as he was talking with his old-time friend about miscellaneous things, this mysterious-eyed girl from that morning had approached them to take their order.

And just now, even as he watched her interact with everyone else in the diner, customer and employee alike, he became even more intrigued about this girl that he'd only just met earlier that day. Even as he'd only just helped her up from the ground, her hand was soft, yet somewhat calloused, like she'd done some honest hard-work all her life or something along those lines. He wanted to know more about this girl.

Minutes passed, and both men found her to be coming back to them with their orders in tow. After she set down the orders, she was about to leave to tend another table, until Akira called her back.

"What time do you get off work?" he asked curiously, wondering if she planned on getting off early or not. But apparently, the question took his friend off guard, as his mouth hung open. Aoshi actually blushed a bit and thought for a moment.

"Not until a bit late tonight." she replied, as she looked down at her watch and read the time: 4:45 pm.

Aoshi was lost in her thoughts since she took the orders of Akira and his friend, and for the last nearly 20 minutes, she was swamped with customers to seat, taking orders and turning them in to the kitchen attendants, and to deliver other orders to other customers. So there was hardly time to dwell on the thoughts of Akitaka Akira and his friend and what they were doing here at her workplace.

Looking around, she knew she had to get back to work. But also knew that she wanted to talk more with this man that she'd skated into and his friend. _'Later,'_ her subconscious was telling her. _'you can talk to him later.'_

"Look, I gotta go. There's work that's gotta get done, before my shift is over," she told them apologetically, her eyes showing how much she wanted to stay and talk. "but I'll try to catch you later... before you leave. And if I don't, well..." she trailed off, for a good reason too. If she wasn't able to catch them before they left, then they knew where she worked. They would have plenty of chances to talk.

As if he were reading her mind, Akira nodded. He didn't want her to go either, but she had a job to do. He even wanted to introduce her to his best friend, and didn't even get a chance to do that. And in the meantime, he'd try and enjoy the meal and make small talk with his friend, and watch this girl go about her work.

Taka seeing the look of sadness in the girl's eyes felt almost sorry for her, as she turned to go back to work. And looking at his friend's face, knew that he had wanted to talk more with her. He was surprised though, when Akira finally cracked and pushed both his hands through his dark hair, and growled to more to himself than anyone else, but Taka could still hear what was being said... even if no one else could.

"Damnit... I wanted to introduce her to Taka too... so much for wanting to talk to her as soon as she delivered the meal..." And not much more was said after that.

"Akira, there WILL be other times when you'll get the chance to talk to her. You know now, where she works- if, not on a regular basis, but you can always ask her and find out what her schedule is." Taka tried to comfort his friend, and thankfully Akira seemed to take heart in that. There WOULD be other chances.

/Meanwhile/

As she walked away, she felt really bad for not at least asking what his friend's name was. But there would be another chance to talk and to be introduced to his friend. They knew where she worked now. There WOULD be other chances in the future to talk.

In the meantime, she still had a job to do.

"Hey, Shi-chan," a nearby employee called out, not too loudly though- it would've brought unwanted attention to both of them. "saw you talking with those two guys in the corner. Do you by any chance know them?" he asked, curiously, yet knowing that very few of her school friends came out this way for a meal with their other friends or their families.

Aoshi shook her head. "No, not really. I just skated into one of them on my to school earlier this morning." she replied, and wondering to herself if she may've developed a crush on a guy she barely knew within the last 24 hours.

"Ha-ha! Caught you by surprise, eh, Shorty?" the 20-some year old man teased, and chuckled at Aoshi's scowl at being called 'shorty'. She may've been a head shorter than himself, but boy did she hate being called "shorty" and "short stuff."

"I'll treat that nickname with the contempt it deserves, Narumi," she huffed, and almost grinned at the hurt look he'd adopted on his face at her tease. "anyway, yeah, it did catch me a bit off guard. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." she finished, as she turned to walk away and head toward the entrance, where there was a whole slew of customers waiting to be seated.

_'Damn... if this keeps up, the diner is gonna have to get an expansion to seat more customers...'_ the girl thought to herself, as she went up and motioned for the next customers- an elderly couple it happened to be and slowed her pace so that they would be able to follow her at a pace that would make it possible for them to follow.

As she seated them, she handed them their menus and told them that someone would be along shortly to take their orders. And went back into the kitchen to grab a dish bucket and damp washcloth and went back into the dining area to help clear tables and wipe down tables, on her way to a nearby table that was stacked with dirty dishes, she let another waiter know that the elderly couple on a benched table overlooking the nearby park, would be ready to order soon. They nodded and complied.

Time seemed to fly by and 45 minutes later, she was only vaguely aware that Akira and his friend were making ready to leave, and inwardly, she felt sad because she wouldn't be able to catch up to them to talk. She shrugged. Oh well, they knew where she worked. There would be a next time. And as soon as they left, time seemed to slow, and the hours slowly ticked by as she got most of the dirty tables cleared and wiped down, she was finally able to take more customers to their tables and didn't remember if or when she had her break yet, it seemed like she'd been working non-stop since she clocked into work.

When next she looked at her watch, she was surprised at what time it read: 10:45 pm.

"Oh. My. God." she gasped out. It was so late, and she still had her homework to do and walk her dog... and she had several tests and quizzes to study for in the next couple days... how was she going to do it all? She had to call Tohru to let her know that she wouldn't be able to walk with her part of the way home...

As soon, as she could, she had another co-worker take her place in taking a family's order, while she went to the back of the diner, where she was certain she could find her manager hard at work at her desk in front of a computer, tallying the diner bills and other such things. And sure enough, the minute she knocked on the office door and her manager looked up, the older woman stood up to round the desk.

"What on earth are you still doing here, Shi-chan? You should've already been on your way home to do you homework, eat a good dinner, and getting a good night's sleep." Makiko admonished her young employee, and took Aoshi by the shoulders and turned her around the gently pushed her in the direction of the employee locker rooms. But before Aoshi took a step in that general direction, she had another question.

"Am I still working a shift tomorrow, Ms. Kusagawa?"

"Yes, though you'll be working from 4 to 7pm. Though it's not as long as I know you'd have liked it to be but, it's all I can really spare before the regular employees come back from their respective paid vacations. So, starting tomorrow you'll be working 3-4 hour shifts with the occassional 5 hours... IF you're lucky." Makiko informed the young employee, as she enunciated the 'if' in that, even as Aoshi adopted a thoughtful look on her young face. Less time to work, meaning more time to herself... and more time to spend with her little twin sister- which she'd admit, that she hadn't spent as much time with her as she should've.

In the end, she nodded in agreement. "Okay. Then, I'll see you tomorrow at 4, Ms. Kusagawa?"

The woman nodded. "Yes. So take care. And be careful on the way home. You hear me?"

Aoshi nodded. The older woman reminded her so much of her mother. "Yes, ma'am. I'll be careful. See you tomorrow then!" and with a wave, she headed to the locker rooms to change back into her school uniform and skates, called her twin to let her know that she wouldn't be able to walk her home as far as she could, donned her safety gear, put on her backsack, and slipped on her messenger bag, and clocked out. As soon as she was out the service door, she skated down the short alleyway and onto the street, crossing a couple streets, but slowing down some and closing her eyes to enjoy the evening breeze that was blowing.

However, as she lost herself to the enjoyment of the evening.. all of a sudden, her eyes flew open, as she once more, skated into a hard, muscular body. Out of surprise, she wasn't able to brace herself for falling flat on her back, with her backsack bruising the small of her back. She groaned. Definately bruised.

"We have GOT to STOP meeting like this." a familiar voice stated. He wasn't alone, for another man chuckled and said, "Is this how the first meeting went, Akira?"

In little more or less pain, she rolled over onto her elbows, and thanked her lucky stars for the helmet. If she hadn't been wearing it, she'd have a decent sized goose-egg on the back of her head, if she wasn't already unconcious. When she tried to stand on her skated feet, only to fall on her stomach.

"OOF!" she exclaimed, as she found herself mere inches from planting her face in a small puddle of dirty water, and was soon aware of strong hands on her shoulders to prevent herself from falling INTO the puddle. Carefully, she was put into a kneeling position. Looking up, she found herself staring into copper-gold eyes, and felt herself start drowning, before she gave herself a mental shake and forced her gaze on something else.

"Thank you." she all but whispered, forced herself to tear her gaze away from Akira's to unfasten the helmet on her head.

"You alright?"

Aoshi nodded her head, and shook her hair out. "Yeah.. I'll be fine... once I've got my breath back..." she gasped out, as she shrugged off her backsack. She sighed, feeling very hungry and just dog tired. As soon as she had her breath back, she managed to say. "Thanks again. But I should be gettin' home."

Akira only looked at the girl that intrigued him, then at his friend, who shook his head. "You shouldn't be wandering about at night, without someone else to take you home. Why doesn't someone come to pick you up, this late?"

Aoshi blanched none too visibly either. "I don't have anyone to pick me up from work. But I can take care of myself."

Akira and Taka exchanged glances. "I'll go ahead and get the groceries, Akira. Go and take the kid back to her family." Akira nodded, and reached to help Aoshi off the semi-wet ground only to find that she was taking her skates off and switching them for a pair of tennis shoes. After tying the knot on her shoe, she put her skates into the backsack, and struggled to her feet... wanting to take the offered hand, but refusing to be seen as weak in another's eyes.

Once she was on her feet, her knees buckled, and Akira was there, to catch her by the elbows, when she started to fall. "Hey, I got ya. Just lean on me, okay?"

Aoshi looked up at the young man that she was leaning against.

"Does it look like I have another choice?" she asked, sarcasm lacing her words. Akira looked down into the violet eyes of the girl that he could come to like. He grinned that near-heart-stopping grin that almost made her melt into his arms.

"Nope." She sighed. There was no helping it. As soon as they took their leave from Taka's retreating back, to Aoshi's apartment.

"So... who all is in your family, Aoshi-san?" Akira finally asked, as he decided to break the semi-uncomfortable silence between himself and this girl. Aoshi looked up at him, and meeting his amber-coloured eyes, seemed mesmerized by their inner caring, she found herslef replying to his question.

"It's just me and my younger sister." Akira all but stopped.

"Just you and your sister? But shouldn't you have a guardian or something?" He asked, as he turned to the young girl, who only shook her head.

"Our grandfather is our legal guadian. But she lives with him and I live on my own." she replied, as she kept on walking, almost feeling the bereft feeling of losing her parents all over again. Suddenly, she stopped, almost making Akira run into her back. She saw her vision go cloudy and felt a dizziness and embarrassment that weren't her own.

_'Tohru? What's going on with you now? Are you sick again? Mom and I kept on telling you to take it easy...'_ Aoshi thought to herself, as she felt another emotion that almost put her on high alert... desperation... then panic. Her sister had some serious explaining to do. As soon as her vision cleared and it wasn't cloudy with blurry images and cloudy shapes, she shook her head, when she heard Akira call out to her, and continued to walk without speaking. She already had alot on her mind.

Akira could only stare at this mysterious girl that had him intrigued. He couldn't help but think to himself: _'Just who are you, Aoshi Honda? Who are you that makes me feel like I want to know who you are?'_ There were no answers forthcoming to the young man who couldn't seem to forget the mysterious eyed high school girl that now walked beside him. And as he saw her stop for a moment, he grew concerned and started calling out to her, but after a moment, she only shook her head- as if clearing it, then walking on.

"Aoshi-san..." he started, but was only met with her violet eyes, and a small smile.

"Aoshi." she said, as she stopped and turned to the golden-eyed man. "Just Aoshi. I don't like formalities."

For a brief moment, Akira was stumped and unsure what to do, until she spoke... then grinned.

"That so," he wondered aloud. "I don't like formalities myself. You can just call me Akira."

He was rewarded with a smile that took his breath away. She seemed to glow from her chest and outwards and it made her eyes glow a mysterious color. She wsn't just passbly pretty.. but beautiful. In just under 24 hours, he'd met a girl that was beautiful in his eyes. And though he didn't know much about her, the only thing he knew was that this girl might be the one that he would eventually fall in love with- if only he was only half in-love with her at this particular point in time.

"All right then..." she began, but was interrupted by an abrupt growling of her stomach, and blushed a coral pink that gently graced her cheeks. Akira was surprised to find his own stomach growl the same sentiment that hers was: _it was HUNGRY._

He chuckled, and held out his arm to her to which she hesitantly took. "There's an open diner around here that serves some great food. Would you care to join me?"

Aoshi giggled, and shouldering her messenger bag, nodded. "I'd like that. Thank you."

So over the next few minutes, they walked in a relatively comfortable silence. When all too soon, they found the diner**(3)** that Akira mentioned minutes ago. As they walked in, the waitress thought they were out on a date, in which the two of them blushed, and gave them a table for two in a corner- NOT by a window overlooking the outside night traffic, but out on the porch where they could enjoy the night air and the stars overhead.

As the waitress left the two of them with their menues, they began small talk.

"Sooo..." Akira began, and found himself being eyed by soft violet eyes.

"Yes?" Aoshi asked, as she dropped her eyes back down to her menu to decide what she could eat. She'd already decided on caffeinated soda to keep her awake so that she could be up to do her homework.

"How often do you work at the diner?" Of all the topics... he just had to pick the one about her workplace. Oh well, she could deal.

"I work part-time there. One of my friends recommended me to the place that was hiring at the time. And I needed some way to be on my own and take care of me and my younger sister," she replied, and asked a question of her own. "So, where do you work?"

"I work at a construction site that happens to be across the street from your diner. Been working with them full-time. But between taking college courses on architecture and construction and the job, it's paying off well."

Aoshi was amazed. This guy was still in college and was doing a job as a construction worker. It made her eager for her own future as a future college student. She couldn't wait.

"Wow. So what's it like in college?" she inquired wonderingly, as she closed her menu and waited for Akira's answer. Akira, on the other hand, cocked his head to the side in wonder. This girl was surprising to him... he didn't know very many girls who'd try and make something of themselves by getting a higher education. In a way, she was the first girl that he knew that wanted to make her life better.

"College can be fun at times... and others... well, it can be a challenge. If you've got the detemination to go through an area of study of your choosing, then it becomes a little easier to get through the work involved in studying the subject. It also helps if you have a very deep interest in the particular subject of study."

There was moment of silence after Akira spoke, allowing Aoshi to soak in the information that she would need when SHE entered into the local Tokyo Metropolitan area college, where she'd found out on the public library computers had great courses that she'd need while working on her area of study.

The waitress came by another moment later. "Are the two of you ready to order now?" she asked, looking between the two that looked like they were in the middle of a staring contest. Aoshi was the first to break eye contact first.

"Yes, we should be ready," she said to the waitress, then turning back to Akira, said, "Akira-kun?"

Akira broke out of his jumbled thoughts when he only vaguely heard Aoshi calling gently to him. "Yes, we're ready. Aoshi-chan?" He was rewarded with another of her breathtaking smiles and smiled in return, making Aoshi turn back to their waitress.

"I'll have the shrimp fettucine alfredo with the cheese garlic bread side and caffeinated raspberry sweet tea, please." she requested, and turned back to Akira, who had picked up his menu, then closed it again.

"I'll have the spaghetti and meatballs with the regular garlic bread side and caffeinated lemon sweet tea, if you have it, please." he said, as the waitress took down their orders and left. Akira looked at the dark-grey-haired girl in front of him and looked her over... from her short hair, to her pierced ears- that had small hoops in them, to her mysterious coloured eyes, to her full mouth that was set just under a button nose. Then there was her uniform... but id didn't look like her school emblem was on it.

"What school do you go to?" he asked her all of sudden... right out the the blue. Aoshi was startled. She hadn't expected him to ask what school she went to.

"Kaibara High." she answered, and looked out over the cafe porch, wondering what was going on with her sister at that moment. Because she felt extreme sadness and loneliness that wasn't hers, and then a vague sense of determination. She quietly hummed a soothing nursery rhyme for her sister so that she could sleep... then peacefulness.

As Aoshi was lost in her thoughts of her sister, Akira watched Aoshi's thoughtful face. He hoped his voice would reach her. "Yen for your thoughts?" he asked quietly, noting that she was humming what sounded like a nursery rhyme. THAT threw him for a loop. _'Why is she humming a nursery rhyme?'_ he wondered, as Aoshi turned back to him.

"Hmm? Oh... yes. Gomen ne," she apologized, noting that the waitress was coming back with their orders. "it was my sister. I probably forgot to mention that we're twins... didn't I?"

Akira nodded. He wondered but thought that her sister was a couple years younger or something. Never would he have imagined that Aoshi had a TWIN sister...

"I wouldn't have imagined that you'd have a twin." he confessed, as the waitress set down their respective orders in front of them. She sighed then grinned.

"She's the one that spazzes out at the slightest surprise. She's kind to a fault and has a.. I don't know.. like a mother-like disposition. She enjoys taking care of others."

"And what about you? Are you the same or different?" he asked curiously, as he dug into his spaghetti and listened to Aoshi's reply. He saw her lips twitch into... what was that the beginnings of a smile? It now looked like a smirk.

"Nope. I can honestly say, I am nothing like my dear little twin sister. Not that I'm not proud to be her sister or anything, but one of us has to be a little more practical and level-headed, right?"

At that, Akira had to chuckle. The sound was like a distant thunder that rumbled gently. "You're right. You DID mention that she spazzes out alot."

Aoshi nodded at the statement. "Uh-huh," she took a quick bite of her food, chewed, and swallowed. "I'm probably more active than her in some other respects. Though I don't know if she knows how to live a little at all."

Akira tilted his head to the side in confusion. "How do you mean?" he asked, as he picked up another moderate forkful of his spaghetti.

"I'm sport-active, she isn't. I"m more into art, and she's into housekeeping. I guess you could say we're as different as night and day." she replied, putting some of her alfredo on her cheese garlic bread and took a decent bite out of it, even as she mulled her own words. _'Though it's true. She's as light-hearted in way that makes it harder for ANYONE to forget her... whereas me? I'm sporty... a tomboy... and...'_ at this last part, she trailed off on the thought altogether. _'... and always angry...'_ There was always something that irritated Aoshi, but sometimes it was unexplainable. Always angry at anything... EVERYTHING. She couldn't explain her anger... though, her martial-arts sensei seemed to understand, that underneath the tomboyish costume... was a fragile girl who was afraid of trying to live. But she gave herself a mental shake before delving further into those morose thoughts, and focused more on the time of night and perhaps getting to know this mysterious golden-eyed man.

"But enough about me," she said even as she took a sip of her raspberry tea. "What about yourself? Do you have any siblings?"

It was plain to Akira that this twin sister that Aoshi spoke so fondly of, was the sunlight whereas, she herself ws the moon. But somehow, he sensed some hidden fragility within Aoshi... like she was afraid of something. What that was, he was bound to find out. But only IF, he kept on trying to get to know her. Only now, he was knocked out of his thoughts by Aoshi's question, and gave himself a mental shake and focused on what was being asked.

"Siblings?" he asked, and went to take a sip of his lemon sweet tea. Aoshi nodded, taking a another bite of her food. He thought for a moment on how to describe his family, but thought better of it.

"I have an older brother- Tatsuya, who owns his own landscaping company. I'm the next one after him- a construction worker," he grinned when he heard the girl across from him giggle. "then there's my younger sisters- Minori and Nami. NOT twins, mind. Between the 4 of us, there's 2 to 3 years in between each of us."

Akira saw Aoshi's brow wrinkle in confusion. "How do you mean by that?" she asked curiously.

"Well..." he began, even as he stirred his drink. "between Tatsuya and myself, there's two years. Between myself and Minori, that's, I THINK, just over 3 years. And then between Minori and Nami, that's another two years." he expained, and watched as understanding dawned over Aoshi and her brow smoothed out and she nodded, but then looked as if something occurred to her at something he just said.

"You said 'just OVER 3 years' apart?" she asked confusedly. He nodded. _'Where is she going with this?'_ he wondered.

"Then wouldn't that be closer to 4 years, rather than 3?"

Now that he thought about it, she was right. He chuckled. "You're right you know." And only just caught the small smile on the girl's face. "I know I am." she said, her voice full of fun and mischief and her eyes sparkling with laughter. But somehow, that seemed to dim as she looked at her wristwatch, which read: 11:15 pm.

Then it all seemed to disappear, with all but a small sparkle left. She looked up apologetically. " I'm really sorry. But I have to be getting home now. I still have schoolwork that needs to get done before tomorrow."

Akira shook his head. "No, it's no problem. I should probably be the one to apologize to you though, Aoshi-chan, for keeping you out this late." He saw their waitress talking with some of her co-workers, and managed to signal her over. And as she excused herself, he saw Aoshi take out her wallet, even as he took out his own. He made a questionable noise, to which Aoshi raised an eyebrow and saw his gaze directed at her wallet. Her expression softened.

"It's the tip for the waitress." was all she simply said. Akira blinked a couple times and would've said something had the waitress not come up to them at that moment.

"May I help you?" she asked. Akira nodded.

"Yes. Actually you can," he replied. "would you be so kind as to give us the bill for our meal and a couple carry-out containers, please?"

The young woman nodded, turned, and left.

Aoshi put on her backsack and shouldered her messenger bag before rifling through her wallet for the tip for their waitress. And all too soon, the waitress was back with two styrofome carry-out containers, a plastic bag, and the bill tray.

She put down the bill tray and carry-out containers. "I hope you enjoyed you meals." she chirped, as Aoshi held out the tip, and Akira rifled through his own wallet momentarily, before pulling out a card and setting it on the bill tray and handing it back to the waitress, who had already pocketed the tip from Aoshi.

"We did enjoy our meals. Thank you very much." Aoshi replied, as she lifted the strap of her messenger bag over her head. Akira nodded his own acknowledgment, and proceeded to drain whatever was left of his drink and pushed the remains of his meal into a carry-out, even as Aoshi did the same.

The young girl sighed, then glanced up at the young man that shared a meal with her. "Thank you for the meal, Akira. It was very kind of you." she said, as she wrote her name on her carry-out container, so that it wouldn't be mistaken for his. She made the mistake of looking directly into his eyes when she thanked him, and found herself trying to breathe as she saw him smile at her, as if SHE were the most important person there that mattered to him, even as she felt herself drown in those amber-gold depths that were his eyes. She looked away abruptly, feeling her face turn red in embarrassment, and picked up the bag with their meals in it, only to have Akira's hand brush her's, as he took the bag. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and blushed a deeper red. And quickly made for the exit, and could've sworn she heard Akira chuckling behind her. _'Does he have any IDEA just how devastating a smile he has?' _She wondered to herself, as she pushed open the doors to the diner, and felt the cool wind against her face. Aoshi quickly started for the sidewalk, feeling her cheeks were still hot out of embarrassment, she nearly made it to the end of the block, before 4 shadowy figures blocked her path. She had the feeling they were encircling her, she felt the adrenaline start to kick in, but held her own where she stood as the one in front of her sidled up to her, leering.

"What's your hurry, Sweety?" he asked in a greasy voice. Aoshi bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from spitting outright at the guy's face. Instead, she adopted a look that a professional actress could've been proud of if they were going for the seductive look. She looked up at the smelly man, her lips tipped up in a seductive way. Her sensei had told her that sometimes this was the best way to catch her adversary off guard and they wouldn't believe that a _girl_ would even harm a fly.

"Who knows?" she replied coyly, feeling the other three close in on her, and wished that she had a little bit of help.

Meanwhile with Akira, he chuckled as she blushed and turned and just barely made it out the doors of the diner. She was probably wondering if he knew he had a devastating smile, which, of course, he knew. He'd seen the flummoxed and fumbling replies and actions of those girls and women- young and old alike, that he'd helped. All of a sudden, he got the gut feeling that his young companion was in trouble if he didn't find her soon. He walked out to the street and looked first to the right and then to the left, where he saw 5 shadowy figures. His instincts were telling him that one of the figures was an innocent. He quickly put the bag under a nearby bench in shadow, and slowly walked down the street toward the 5 figures, two of which now had a third in their grip. He was within hearing range, and heard the raucous laughter and a clear and VERY familiar voice say: "Hands. Off."

_'Aoshi...' _His mind nearly went blank, but he knew that he had to help her. She sounded downright pissed about being outnumbered. Not that he blamed her, if he were in her shoes, he'd be peeved too. _'if they don't let her go, heads are gonna start rolling.. and rolling fast.'_ He thought to himself, as he walked toward them, quietly. Then he heard:

"Or what, Sweety?" an oily voice asked. Acid bile rose in Akira's throat and he forced himself to swallow, and saw the guy get closer to Aoshi- couldn't hear what she said, but saw that the guy had yelped and doubled over holding his family jewels. He saw the fifth shadow's face contort in rage.

"YOU BITCH!" he yelled, but Akira just managed to run faster and passing the two thugs that held Aoshi's arms, slammed the charging thug. When he turned, one of the two, let Aoshi go and squared off with him. In Akira's mind, he wasn't sure what happened, the guy charged, he dodged and gave the guy a good right hook, but it only took a moment for the guy to shake it off and got him with a damn HARD left hook of his own, sending him reeling against the brick wall of a nearby closed store, where he promptly hit the back of his head, and right before his dazed eyes, saw stars. Akira shook his head and tried to stand, but ended up leaning against the wall for support, and saw his adversary pull out a pocket knife. A cold shiver ran down his spine, and he happened to look toward Aoshi, and saw her eyes flash briefly with... what? Worry? Concern? Fear? Whatever it was, it was gone, and then he saw her elbow her captor in the face sending him reeling backward, but caught his arm, and brought him over her shoulder sending him flying. Out of surprise, Akira's own adversary turned, just as his buddy flew right into him, while his pocketknife dropped to the concrete, as the two of them landed in a mountain of trash just inside a nearby alley, unconcious.

Akira could feel his vision going in and out, all he heard were footsteps that seemed to be running toward him, then a cool hand on his face and forced himself to open his eyes to meet dark violet eyes that seemed to hold concern for him. He felt her cool hand flutter down to his jaw where it seemed to him that there was a tender spot. _'Must've been where the guy hit me... damn left hook...'_ he thought, as he tried to keep himself conscious. Then he heard her soothing voice say gently:

"Hold tight. I'm gonna call for help." He could only give her a silent nod of acknowledgement.

Aoshi's mind was running a mile a minute. One minute she was able to bluff her way out of the situation and the next she finds herself unable to fight back. She closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down, no use letting Tohru know that something happened. Quickly, she opened her cellphone and speed-dialed her next door neighbor- Detective Yamaguchi Ryouji's place. He had once told her that if she needed anything, ANYTHING at all, to call him no matter if it was night or day.

_'Time to put those words to the test.'_ The girl thought to herself. The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

_"Hello?"_ a feminine voice answered. Aoshi breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ayako-chan, it's me, Aoshi," there was a gasp of surprise on the other end. "I need your dad's help. Is he by any chance there?" she asked, before Ayako could ask why she was calling so late at night.

"Yes, he's here. Hold on a moment." Then there was silence, then a moment of murmuring before a light baritone voice was heard.

_"Aoshi? Are you there?"_ the voice asked. Aoshi swallowed, and looked at her injured friend.

"I'm still here, Detective Yamaguchi," she replied and went on quickly before he could ask what the problem was. "I need your help. There's been a bit of an... incident. A friend of mine and I were on our way home and we kinda got... ambushed." She quickly outlined what happened and told him where they were, as she heard rustling on the other end of the phone. When she finished, the detective was silent for a moment, then replied:

_"Hang tight, Aoshi. I'm on my way. I should be able to bring in the cavalry as it were."_

"Okay. See you then." Aoshi replied and hung up. She breathed a sigh of relief, then heard a slight groan and looked at the near unconscious man leaning against the wall. She knelt at his side, and set the back of a hand to his forehead.

"Still with me, Akira?" The young man seemed to be listening for her voice and looked up at her, a darkening bruise just forming around his jaw.

"Yeah.. just barely though." and flinched at the pain in his jaw, as he spoke. Aoshi shook her head.

"Don't talk. You'll hurt the worse for it. Help is on the way." She told him softly, and looked toward the three unconscious muggers... but narrowed her eyes. Where the hell was the fourth that she kicked in the groin? He seemed to have hightailed it when he saw his buddies taken out by a young man and a little girl. At least she'd gotten a good look at his dirty smelly face. She'd be able to describe him accurately enough to have him caught soon. She sat next to the young man, and waited for the aforementioned cavalry, and when it looked as if one of the 3 unconscious muggers were going to wake up, she had gotten up and hit them in the back of the neck, effectively knocking them out again.  
10 minutes later, two spinning blue and red police cruisers came up to the curb along with an ambulance and a dark blue Saturn pulled up behind the ambulance, and an older man in his mid-40's got out, just as a few other police officers came out of their cruisers and a couple paramedics out of the ambulance.

Aoshi got up and took a couple steps away from Akira and motioned to the paramedics, who checked over Akira, who had slipped into unconsciousness. She watched as they loaded him onto a gurney, until she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. Looking slightly up to her left, found the middle-aged man with a bit of a paunch, there. His dark eyes were kind, though there was concern written on his face.

"Do you want to go with them to the hospital or go home, Aoshi?" the man asked, softly. Aoshi looked back at the ambulance and made a fast decision.

"I'll go with him. And thanks for getting here as fast as you did," she said, taking a few steps toward the ambulance, then turned around. "as for my statement.. can you take it at the hospital while we wait for the doctors to give a report on him?"

The man nodded, and watched as she ran to the ambulance and hopped in. The officers were going over the area and bringing the unconscious back to the world of the conscious and putting them inside the cruisers. An officer walked up to the older man, and held up a plastic bag.

"Detective Yamaguchi? What do you want me to do with this?" the officer asked, as he held it out to the older man now known as "Detective Yamaguchi." The older detective took the bag and found two take-out containers, which the topmost one had the name "Honda Aoshi" written near a corner, most likely not to confuse it with the other take-out container. The older man chuckled, and turned to the other man.

"I'll take this to young Aoshi at the hospital," he said, the another thought came to him. "Where did you find this?"

The young officer pointed at a nearby bench near the scene. "Just under that bench, Sir." the young man said. Detective Yamaguchi nodded silently, and without another word, headed back to his car and headed toward the hospital. And wondered just what the details to this night's excursions were.

/Meanwhile/

Bright lights hurt his eyes and voices that seemed too loud woke him up from some kind of dreamless sleep. Then he heard distinctly:

"... But he'll be okay?" it was a young girlish voice. _'Where the hell am I? And how did I get here?'_ Akira wondered to himself, then it hit him like a ton of bricks. They had just finished their dinner at the restaurant and Aoshi had run out for a secret reason that he already guessed at. Then he found that she was being assaulted on the street sidewalk, and he'd gone to her rescue. Everything that had gone on there had been a blur and he couldn't make heads or tails of what he remembered... probably because of the drugs that he was on. He listened, not daring to open his eyes.

"He'll be just fine. The bruising along his jaw should go down in more or less a week, and so should that bump in the back of his head. Thankfully, no serious damage was made. However, just to be safe. We'd like to keep him here overnight just to make sure." a masculine tenor replied. A sigh of relief was heard, then:

"Thank you. May I sit with him until he wakes up?" the girl asked.

"You may. But when he wakes up, he'll have to have a check-up, you understand."

"Yes, I understand. Thank you again, Dr. Atsushi."

There was no reply, but Akira got the impression that the doctor had nodded. Now he knew where he was, but the question was, _which hospital was he in?_ He heard the swishing of a curtain sliding and the near unbearable sound of a chair being dragged to his bedside, then a soft plop- as if someone had planted themselves in the chair. He wasn't sure if he gave any indication of movement, but when he kept his breathing even, he heard rummaging then a near quietness then silence with quiet sounds like what sounded like a pencil being dragged across a piece of paper... or something. Then there was silence once more without the sound of a dragging pencil over paper, but as if a thoughtful silence had overtaken the atmosphere of the hospital room. Then he heard the sound of page being turned, and a pencil being dragged over a paper in rapid strokes, then silence. That did it, he couldn't stop playing possum, not when he had to move. In trying to move his upper body, he let out a breath of air and a groan. He heard movement, then felt a weight on his right side. When he tried to open his eyes, the burning sensation of light hitting them made him close his eyes more tightly.

"Hey there, Stranger." a familiar voice greeted, breaking the haze that was on his mind. He tried to open his eyes more slowly, and though it hurt to open them, he HAD to see her. HAD to know that she was alright and unharmed.

"Hey yourself, Aoshi." Akira just managed to get out. His sight was just about clear enough for him to open his eyes all the way. He held back a visible flinch at the pain in his jaw and looking at her, saw her grin down at him.

"You feeling alright then, Akira?" she asked, he almost scowled at her.

"What do you think?" he bit out, and immediately kicked himself for talking that way to the girl that saved his hide. "Sorry, Aoshi." he said apologetically. She shook her head at him.

"No apologies necessary. You're allowed to be a grump," she told him waving off his apology, then added in a rather flippant way, "I used to hate getting hit in the jaw too."

Akira looked at her. "Doesn't mean I can just go and bite your head off, when you saved my life." he told her, then re-thought her statement. _"I used to hate getting hit in the jaw too."_

"Wait... you've been hit...? Your parent's didn't...?" he wanted to ask, but saw her eyes widen as she got the gist of what he was trying to ask. And waved her hands in front of her.

"Oh no.. not my parents. Our dad passed on when we were little, and our mom..." Aoshi paused, and then went on hurriedly. "Our mom always wanted what was best for us. Treated us like we were her own secret hidden treasure. But she never hit either me or my twin." Akira noticed the pause, and saw some unknown emotion deep inside those violet orbs, he frowned.

"You're going to leave me hanging about that statement aren't you?" he asked roughly, and was rewarded with a small grin.

"Maybe," she said, her eyes narrowing and lips tipping up mischievious smile. "Maybe not. Or I'm just going to talk to Detective Yamaguchi, while the doctors have a look at you, and try to relieve that swelling around your jaw area." Whcih begged the question:

"By the way, Aoshi?" he asked, as he saw her get her bags and turn toward the door. At her name, she turned back to face Akira, who tried to sit up, only to fall back against the fluffed pillows behind his back and head.

"Yes? What is it?"

"What hospital am I in?" he asked curiously, and saw that slow smile spread across her face.

"You're at the Kantou General Hospital in uptown Tokyo. It wasn't too far from where that scuffle took place." She told him, then went up to him, and brushed aside some of his bangs from his eyes. "Rest while you can until a doctor gives you a check-up. The hit on your jaw isn't too bad, but the doctors are planning on keeping you overnight to make sure that you took no serious damage when you hit your head."

"But-" he tried, but was stopped, when Aoshi put her fingertips against his mouth.

"I have to talk to Detective Yamaguchi about what happened earlier, give him my statement if you will. And you can bet that they'll talk to you as soon as you're able. Which means that you need your rest." She told him, as she took her fingers away from his surprisingly soft lips, and repressed the urge to shake her fingers from the tingling that ran through her entire body from the instant contact with his lips.

Akira closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "Will you be by later, if I'm not released?" he asked, it had to be near midnight by now. So much for a peaceful walk home. The girl next to him looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Yeah.. I'll be by later probably in the morning... mess around with my teachers some..." she giggled mischieviously at the thought, which Akira had to chuckle at. "I'll see you later, Akira. Try and rest."

"Yeah.. see you..." he replied, as she disappeared on the other side of the curtain. He knew that she was right. The police would want his statement as soon as he was able to talk without flinching every so often at the pain in his jaw. He leaned back aginast the pillows and it wasn't long before sleep overcame his conscious, but was only vaguely aware that a doctor had come and gone from his room before sleep swept him away to the land of dreams.

/With Aoshi/

She had only managed to get out of Akira's room without tripping, by sheer willpower. There was no way that she had just told him personal things that he had no business knowing.. but somehow, it felt right to tell him. Like she could actually be herself, not that she had to try very hard. He actually chuckled when she mentioned playing hooky and annoying her teachers. Some of the teachers faces were priceless when she was absent to a class, but somehow always caught up before the week was out. To her, he had a good sense of humor. The young girl was brought out of her thoughts, when she saw a slightly older man talking to a nurse at the nurse's station and trying to find... what seemed like the room number for a relative.  
Aoshi took a look at the profile of the man. Dark hair that was semi-flyaway, from the color of the eye that she could see, she could hazard a bet that they were maybe a blue-green, tall and broad in the shoulders. He wore worn blue jeans and a red plaid shirt that was tucked in, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Aoshi tuned into the conversation.

"-told that my younger brother got knocked around, and that he was brought here. What room number is he in?" the man sounded frustrated, Aoshi couldn't really blame him. But he had a really strong resemblance to Akira. Could this be his older brother, Tatsuya? Aoshi inwardly cringed. _'This is what happens when curiosity gets the better of the cat...'_ she thought to herself, as she walked calmly up to the man.

"Excuse me, Sir?" she cut in, before the nurse could reply to the young man, who obviously felt that the nurse was trying to keep him there. The man turned to her, an eyebrow raised. _'Yup, definately Akira's brother.'_

"Yes, can I help you?" the man asked, wondering what a high school student was doing here at the hospital so late at night.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your conversation, but just out of curiosity, are you Akitaka Tatsuya, Akitaka Akira's older brother?" she wondered, looking right into those turquois eyes that widened in surprise.

"You know my brother?" The surprise in his voice was unmistakable. She smiled and nodded.

"Only since this morning. But we met up earlier this evening purely by accident when I was on my way home." She began and noticed that Tatsuya was motioning over to the seats near the lobby, and went toward where he was motioning.

"Oh? So how did my brother get his ass landed here?" he asked, suspiciously eyeing the high schooler, who looked like a boy. Aoshi looked sidelong at the man, and as if guessing what was on his mind, and a smile on her face.

"I'm a girl, just so you know." And laughed outright at the surprised look on his face, before the surprise faded and a slow grin spread across his handsome face.

"Okay then, joke's on me." And chuckled, and with a slight grin on his face he asked. "Okay, down to serious business. How do you know Akira? How do you know about ME for that matter?" he asked, wondering if this girl had caught his younger brother's eye or something. Aoshi sighed, she knew that one was coming.

"I already answered the one about Akira. The one about you on the other hand, I had just gotten off work late and bumped into your brother and his friend. After that, your brother scolded me for walking home on my own and not have someone come pick me up from work. Your brother's friend told Akira that he'd take of the errand that needed taking care of and that Akira ought to see me home. We both kind of gotten hungry at the same time. I don't even remember if I took my break at work or not, but Akira offered to treat me to a meal. And while we ate, we talked a little about ourselves and if we had any siblings..." she trailed off, having probably told him how they met AND how she knew OF him. Tatsuya on the other hand, grinned.

"And what exactly did my younger brother say about me?" he asked. Aoshi shook her head. _'He's probably wondering if Akira said anything embarrassing about him.'_ she thought to herself humorously.

"Not much. Only that you own a landscaping company." she replied, and happened to look toward the entrance, where she saw Detective Yamaguchi just come in with a slightly shorter AND younger woman, whom Aoshi had only seen from a distance and not up close. She had wide black eyes, a smallish nose, full lips, and high cheekbones. She was short in height, but her dark eyes held suspicion in them, giving Aoshi the impression that the woman held everyone a suspect until a proper lead could be found that would lead to the truth. _'Must be his partner, Detective Matsura Kanako.'_

Aoshi turned her attention back to Akira's older brother, and stood up bowing to him politely. "Excuse me, but I have to see Detective Yamaguchi about a certain incident that happened earlier tonight."

Tatsuya regarded her carefully, then said quietly: "Does it have anything to do with how my brother ended up here?" The minute he asked the question, he saw a flicker of pain shoot across her violet coloured eyes, and saw her small nod.

"Yes. I'm afraid so." she replied sadly. She hadn't asked for him to come to her rescue, but she DID need the help, a distraction at best and she could've handled the rest. Tatsuya was sure the pain that he saw in her eyes wasn't for her present situation, but rather a past situation that she couldn't help but relive here. Silence fell between the two.

"I'd like to be present when you tell the detective what happened." he said finally breaking the deafening silence between them. Aoshi looked him directly in the eye and saw sincerity and the animal that she saw that represented Akira's brother was that of a beaver. She inwardly grinned to herself. The beaver represented industry, perseverance, and family. It suited him. She could trust him to back his family. She silently nodded to him, and walked over to Detective Yamaguchi, who had a worried look.

"Are you certain you wouldn't want me to contact your family, Aoshi?" the detective asked the young girl. Aoshi nodded.

"I'm sure. If push comes to shove and they hear of it, I'll explain what happened." she said, but thought to herself, _'Not that dad's sister would believe me on the off chance...'_

The detective nodded, then as if noticing the slightly older man just behind her, held out his hand.

"Detective Yamaguchi Ryouji," he introduced himself, and motioning to the woman beside him. "This is Detective Matsura Kanako." Aoshi watched Tatsuya grasp Detective Yamaguchi's hand in a firm handshake and then Detective Matsura's.

"Akitaka Tatsuya. Akitaka Akira is my younger brother."

Detective Yamaguchi nodded and smiled slightly. "Must be the family resemblance. I can tell the two of you are brothers."

Tatsuya seemed to acknowledge that face. "So we've been told. Often." he said, as he glanced at the young girl beside him. Detective Yamaguchi noticed and, no doubt, so did Detective Matsura.

"Why don't we have a seat while young Aoshi tells us of tonight's happenings?" Detective Yamaguchi suggested, as he got nods of agreement from his partner and Aoshi and a rather questioning noise from Tatsuya.

"But isn't she a minor? Surely, she'd need someone of legal age to be with her when she gives her statement..." Tatsuya began, but was silenced effectively, when Aoshi set a gentle hand on his arm, and shook her head.

"Yes, I'm a minor. But Detective Yamaguchi is my next-door-neighbor, and has looked out for me since I moved in next door. He, my sister, and some close friends of mine can vouch for my honesty. I have no reason to lie." She said, gently, but in a clear enough tone that said: _Have a little faith in me, why don'cha?_

Detective Matsura looked between them and cleared her throat, as she took out a pad, and Detective Yamaguchi smothered a chuckle, before he too cleared his throat and looked at the young high school girl. "Now, young Aoshi, why don't you tell us the sequence of events, starting from when you were leaving work?"

Aoshi nodded agreement, and went on to tell them how while she was on her way home, she had bumped into Akira and a friend of his that had been at the diner with him earlier that evening, and had scolded her for going home on her own and not having someone come take her home. How Akira's friend had said that he'd take of their errand and that Akira could take her home and then when he heard her stomach rumble- he'd offerered to treat her to dinner. And how, when they were finished, he'd stayed behind at the diner to take care of their bill, she'd opted to go outside and wait for him, and she'd gotten surrounded by the muggers. And how when she tried to bluff her way out of the situation, they'd prevented her from trying to fight back. She told them that just as one of the 4 muggers had tried to insinuate a vulgar suggestion she'd kicked him where it hurt the most -physically- on a guy, and then when one of his buddies had run up to her and tried to slam her, Akira had come out of nowhere, and slammed the guy instead. And when one of the guys that had had her arms pinned behind her, had gone into a one-on-one fist-fight with Akira, how the guy had gotten a good shot at Akira and hit him hard in the jaw and how Akira had hit his head against the brick wall that made up a store, and also of when Akira's adversary had pulled a pocketknife out, how she'd managed to hit her captor in the face and threw him over her shoulder into the guy that had pulled the knife out. Up to when she called her next-door-neighbor.

All the while, while Aoshi was busy telling the detectives what had happened, Tatsuya's eyes had gotten wider when she said that she actually THREW her captor OVER her shoulder. _'Impressive. Looks like my little brother did well this time around...'_ He thought to himself, as he watched Detective Matsura write down some notes, before she finally looked up and speared Aoshi with a look that may've said: _There's more to the story, isn't there?  
_And when he chanced a look at Aoshi, to her credit, she didn't seem phased at all by the woman's look, instead, Detective Yamaguchi- who noticed the look from his partner, sighed and looked at the young girl. "Would you be able to describe this person, Aoshi? We only found 3 unconscious men. NOT four as you claim there were."

To the surprise of both detectives and Tatsuya, Aoshi set her hand inside her messenger bag and brought out a sketchbook. "I can do you one better, Detective Yamaguchi," she said, as she opened the sketchbook to a page, and ripped it out of her sketchbook. "I kinda thought you might ask if I could describe him. But since words can't adequately catch what he looked like and he could practically be anybody with similar features, I drew him out for you." And handed them the sketch of the man that she said she'd kicked. "Apparently, he must've hightailed it when his 3 buddies were put down and he found himself outnumbered, if Akira had even been fully conscious at that moment in time. Even with him hurting as he was." She told them, as she put her sketchbook back in her messenger.

Detective Matsura took the sketch-page from Aoshi and nearly grinned at the girl. "We've been looking for this particular person for a while, Honda-san." the woman said, as she passed the page to Detective Yamaguchi, who looked at the sketched man. The man on the page looked to be somewhere in his 20's and had an olive skin tone, his frame somewhat broad, yet slight, his face was lean and not overly handsome- but not quite good-looking in way as to be dashing in a roguish sort of way. His eyes were narrow and looked to be a dark green. His nose was crooked and seemed to have healed that way from numerous breaks. He had what looked to be several piercings in both ears and a single chain around his neck. He seemed to have had the "bad-boy" look from his younger days, but not now. The sketch showed the man with a part off to the right side that was slicked back and greasy-looking while the other part was hanging down into one of his dark green eyes.

The detective looked up from the sketch and at the young girl in front of him with a grim smile. "If you ever want to work with the police when you've graduated high school, you can have the police sketch-artist position." Aoshi shook her head, but managed a grin somewhat.

"Thanks, but I think I'll pass," she replied, as she inwardly shivered at the memory of the sketch-man's disgusting leer, and wished she'd kicked him harder. "but I probably should've kicked him harder so as to incapacitate him so that he could be dealt with AFTER the scuffle..." she said in a rather remorseful tone.

The detectives shared an amused look, but inwardly, both Detective Yamaguchi and Tatsuya cringed. _'I'd HATE to be in that guy's shoes.' _Both men seemed to think, when they caught sight of the holy indignation glinting in the young girl's violet eyes. But when the aforementioned girl let out a yawn, she looked down at her watch. 11:55 pm.

_'Damn.. near midnight and nothing done for school...but what a night.'_ Aoshi thought to herself, as she checked to make sure that she had both her messenger and her backsack. Looking at both the detectives, she stood, and bowed to them.

"Sorry, but I really have to get home." The detectives and Tatsuya understood when they both looked at a nearby wall clock that read the time, and stood at the same time she did, and shook hands with her. When Detective Yamaguchi finally shook hands with her, he grasped her hand gently.

"Are you certain you'll make it back to your apartment without causing trouble?" he asked her, and to his chagrin, she gave a slight grin.

"Oi.. that's taking a little self-confidence out of my skills as a martial artist, Detective," she said in a semi-joking manner. "but haven't you heard? I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble comes looking for me and there ain't a damn thing I can do about it." She shrugged, as Detective Yamaguchi sighed in resignation and let the girl's hand go, and as if another thought occurred to her, she turned to Tatsuya.

"You'll find Akira on the second floor. Room 217. But he'll probably be asleep though." Tatsuya nodded, unable to say anything, as her words echoed in his head. '_...self-confidence out of my skills as a martial artist...'_ And shook his head, mentally grinning at his little brother's choice in girls. _'Looks like Akira chose well for himself this time around.' _The younger man thought to himself.

"Be safe then, Aoshi." Detective Yamaguchi finally said, as she turned to go. She waved before disappearing passed the hospital sliding doors that made up the entrance/exit.

Tatsuya looked at the retreating back of the girl in the boys' uniform as she disappeared out the doors of the hospital and chanced a glance at Detective Yamaguchi, who was staring sadly out the doors of the hospital where the long gone girl had disappeared, passed. "Probably not my business, but how long has she been on her own, Detective?" He asked, wondering if there was anything he could do for the girl that saved his younger brother's hide.

The detective looked away and regarded the younger man for a moment, then as if he saw something that made him trust Tatsuya, finally sighed. "She's been on her own for about a month now. She and her sister are orphans with their grandfather as their legal guardian. But for all we both know, she could've been on her own for a long time."

That confused Tatsuya, as his brow wrinkled together and frowned. "So why isn't she living with her grandfather?"

"The poor girl is a free spirit and has always needed wide open spaces. She would feel like she was caged if she stayed with her grandfather, and she knew it… and unfortunately, so did he."

That made some sense to the younger man, not a whole lot though. It still didn't make the worry about the girl disappear. But nodding to acknowledge the detective, went up to the second floor to look in on his brother.

/Aoshi/

As soon as she got outside the hospital doors, she quickly switched from her tennis shoes to her skates and safety gear. The sooner she got home, the better. She didn't need anymore trouble. Not tonight. If she was gonna get into trouble, it was going to be for something that she did, not for no reason at all. All too soon, she was at her apartment complex, and breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't met any trouble on the way home. And her apartment lights were still out, like she'd left them before leaving for school and the blinds left open so that Aki wasn't in complete darkness when she got home from work. It was waaay passed midnight, and she was so very tired, she'd just crash right into bed uniform and all, never mind that she still wore her safety gear.

She quickly fished her apartment key out of her pants pocket and set it into the keyhole. Once it was in and turned, she opened the door and was greeted by the sound of clicking of nails on tiled floor then the soft padding of paws on carpet.

"Aki… I'm home…" the girl called, as soon as she was inside and the door closed behind her. Her irish setter came padding up to her, tongue lolling, ears perked up, tail wagging and pleading eyes that seemed to ask, _"Are we gonna go for our evening run in the park?"_

Aoshi almost laughed, and bent to ruffle her dog's ears, as she sat down on the entryway stair to take off her rollerblades and safety gear. "Not tonight, Aki…" she was cut off by a large yawn, and rubbed her cheek on her shoulder. Her dog's ears and tail seemed to droop. "But this I can promise. We'll go for an extra long walk in the morning to make up for tonight's missed adventure. How 'bout that?"

In an instant, her dog seemed to perk back up again, now looking forward to their morning venture into the refreshing morning air. Another yawn caught the dog's ears and nuzzled her mistress' face. Aoshi couldn't help it, she laughed.

"Time for bed for me, is that it, girl?" she asked laughingly, and the dog yipped in reply. She took off her backsack and messenger and put them by the side desk with her key, and sighed.

"Oh boy… what a day… Between Ru-chan's spazz attacks, meeting a guy I barely know, work, and then tonight's excursions… wonder what could be worse?" she glanced down at her dog, as she stood up and leaned against the desk for a moment, and could see that her answer was reflected back at her in Aki's amber-brown gaze, as the dog settled herself at Aoshi's feet. She looked up at the ceiling. Definitely a tie between tonight's excursions and one called Akitaka Akira.

"Time for bed now, c'mon, Aki." She told the Irish Setter, who immediately got back up and followed Aoshi through the small two-bedroom apartment down the short hallway to the end and on the left- where her bedroom was located. As she took off her uniform jacket and pants, she quickly switched to a pair of black sweatpants and a long sleeved dark blue scoop-neck, and did her daily nighttime ablutions. By the time she was through, she literally fell into bed.

Aki sat there, and as if something clicked in the intelligent dog's head, got up and pulled the rumpled comforter over her mistress and leaped up onto the bed to offer her body heat during the semi-cold night. Aoshi, already drifting off to dreamland, moaned quietly and pulled the comforter further up to her chin, and murmured to the Irish Setter laying next to her. "G'nite, Aki." Which earned the girl a quick lick on the cheek, and was swept away in dreamless sleep.

What seemed like several hours later, Aoshi woke to the dawn blue of early morning, the sun not yet over the horizon and coming through the hand-me-down lavender drapes over her window. When she glanced at her clock it read: 6:00 am.

Aoshi groaned and buried her head back in her pillow, how she wanted to just sleep in. But she needed to know what was going on with her sister and then make a visit to the hospital to check in on Akira. So, with great reluctance, she got up, careful not to disturb her dog from sleep and slipped out of the room to cook up a bento box for her sister… and had the off chance feeling that she may need a fresh uniform. For what reason, she could only hazard a guess.

"Oh well," she murmured, as she worked through the morning routine of going to the kitchen and getting breakfast started and getting some ingredients together to make a couple bento boxes, before retreating to her bedroom to lay out her casual clothes for the day. A dark blue camisole, a dark purple long-sleeved scoop neck with splotches of pink, red, magenta, and coral, black jeans, and underclothes.

By the time she was finished with her shower and dressed, the sun was well above the horizon. She quickly made up the bento boxes and ran to her room for her recharged cell phone and small leather backpack. Grabbing the extra set of girls' uniform- that she had that was meant for _HER_ to wear, quickly put it inside the backpack before putting the bento boxes inside, also putting in her sketchbook and pencils and a few homework papers that she could do, while she was outdoors today.

Thinking about putting her cell phone in her pocket, she felt dizzy and was starting to feel irritated.

_'Tohru… what in the 9 layers of hell is going on?'_ Aoshi nearly growled to herself, as she turned on her cell and dialed her sister. Though it seemed like forever until her twin finally picked up her ringing cell phone.

_"Aoshi?"_ Tohru asked, and Aoshi could hear the worry in her twin's voice.

"We gotta talk, Kitten." She said bluntly as she grabbed her light magenta vest and her key ring clip with her house and bike chain keys on it, off the wall hook by her front door.

_"Why?"_

"Why? Kitten, you know why. I'm getting really weird vibes from you since early yesterday morning to now. That's nearly 24 hours now. Which means, we gotta talk REAL soon, understand?"

_"Okay…"_ Aoshi could hear the reluctance in her sister's voice now and wondered what was making her twin so reticent. She sighed, and grabbed Aki's leash and whistled softly for her dog to come. An eager Irish setter bounded up to her wagging her tail in puppy-dog excitement.

_"Look, I'm worried, Kitten. I can't always prevent your spazz attacks when you're off on your own meeting weird people…or whatever."_ Aoshi said, as she locked her apartment door behind her and Aki, until they got to the bike rack and Aoshi unchained her bike from the rack, as she kept the phone by her ear.

A few minutes more of talking and asking whether she had work today, and Aoshi hung up, as she put her dog's leash over a handlebar, stuck her cellphone in her backpack's side pocket, adjusted her elbow pads and fingerless safety gloves, and finally turned her bike in the direction of where she knew her sister had camped out.

Half an hour of biking and she was soon in a forested area, she stopped and looked around. Aki whimpered and started tugging Aoshi's bike to the left further into the forested area. Aoshi looked down at her dog.

"I hope you know where you're going, Girl. Let's go."

10 minutes later, Aoshi saw the telltale signs of a landslide, and was glad that her sister hadn't been caught in it. She looked down at her dog.

"Can you find her, Aki? She asked, as she got off her bike and took off her elbow pads and safety gloves. After settling her backpack more comfortably on her back and shoulders, finally took off Aki's leash off the handlebar and gripped tight.

"Okay, Girl. Whenever you're ready."

Aki was already pulling her in a random direction and soon found herself staring at what looked like a traditional Japanese house. She heard the sound of someone pounding away at what sounded like a fist on wood… a sound that she had committed to memory from her own training in the martial arts- and looked up and saw a boy with a head of unnatural orange hair. And then suddenly, it seemed that he'd succeeded in making a hole in the roof and jumping right into it.

"Strange guy…" she murmured to herself. "Strange and very STUPID guy."

Aki 'woof'ed quietly in agreement, and gently pulled Aoshi in the direction of the house… then when they were right at the front door, Aki planted herself right there. Aoshi looked down at her dog.

"You plan on staying right here, huh?" she asked, as she tugged gently on the leash and was rewarded with a stubborn dog, who refused to move from that spot.

"Okay.. I can take a hint. Stay put then. And don't wander off." She said, dropping the leash and headed toward the open back door and heard a commotion from upstairs. Heading in that direction she heard yelling and then something akin to some kind of war cry.

Just as she got to the second floor landing, she heard an unfamiliar voice ask:

"Yuki... I heard some noise... is Kyou back?" a short pause, then: "... oh my."

Then her sister's voice:

"I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" Aoshi shook her head in exasperation, her dear little sister… always the caring one… but quite the spazz. She quietly walked down the hall and made out a quieter voice that was laced with irritation and embarrassment.

"Can we do something with that idiot?"

She came up quietly behind a slightly older man and just from over his shoulder, she saw her sister holding an orange cat that seemed to have an anger tick on it's temple. Something inside Aoshi seemed to click. Something BIG was going on… and her sister just… by pure accident… found out what that BIG something was.

"Holy… Crap…" she said out loud… and wondered briefly if it was her imagination that she said something or she'd actually said something that was actually heard. It proved to be the first when she was confronted by two sets of eyes… one dark grey and the other a tree-bark brown. Deep in their eyes, she saw chained animals. Yuki's- a chained rodent… and this older person- a chained dog.

_'What in the world is going on?'_ Aoshi wondered at the chains she saw. In everyone's eyes they had some kind of animal that represented who they were and what kind of person they were… but NEVER had she seen chains on ANY of them. She softened her eyes and grinned at them.

"Hi! I'm Aoshi Honda. Tohru's older twin sister."

The look in Yuki's eyes when he met hers seemed to ask: _'How the hell did you get here?'_

This was going to take some time to explain to them. But hell, she had all day- given that she was planning on playing hooky.

* * *

A/N: Hey there Minna-San! Sorry for the long wait.. but Chapter 2 is up! XD

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, writing in humor and almost laughed myself to tears at some parts and others I felt I was putting a piece of myself into the story to make it a little more smoother. But I hope everyone has enjoyed the story thus far. I will see about getting Chapter 3 up soon. For the OC's I'm probably gonna be putting their different POVs in the same chapter as Aoshi's, depending on if you liked this chapter or not.

the numbers in parentheses are just little side notes. Hee hee XD  
(1) If anyone has seen Digimon: Frontier.. you'll find out that Koji and Koichi are actually TWINS ^_^ I thought they'd make a nice addition to my version of Fruits Basket ^.^;;

(2) Is this even a word? XD

(3) I'm making it an Italian diner... sorry if I wasn't sure exactly sure when to mention it. ^_^;;;

Any questions, comments, or suggestions for the next chapter... I'm all ears. ^_^ Please R&R and tell me if you hated it or liked it! Constructive Criticism is greatly appreciated. No flamers plz!

'Til the next time,  
Ja matte ne!  
~Mari-Chan~


	3. Secrets Revealed!

Doubled Fruits Basket  
By: Marina StormFire  
Disclaimer: I'm not gonna keep writing up this disclaimer. I DON'T OWN A THING EXCEPT MY IMAGINATION AND MY OC's.

**Narrative ****by ****character  
Yelling ****by ****someone ****outside ****the ****current ****conversation  
Emphasis  
**_Thoughts __or __Flashbacks __or __dream__states_  
YELLING  
Story

* * *

Chapter 3: The Sohma Secret Revealed!

(Normal POV)

Everything was nearly silent. Yuki and Shigure wondering how the hell Aoshi had gotten inside the house was the last thing on their minds as Tohru just stood there, holding an orange cat with an anger tick on its head.

"He … turned into a cat. But… he was just a boy a second ago…" she trailed off and it looked like she was calm enough to take it all in. However, Aoshi knew better and could feel an oncoming spazz attack. _'__Here __it __comes,__'_ she thought and began a countdown. _'__in __3__…__2__…__1__…'_

"Aaahh! Is this because I crashed into him? I hit him in the wrong place and he turned into a cat?" It seemed like Shigure was unsure how to answer Tohru's outburst.

"No… well, yeah. Kinda?"

Yuki had an anger tick growing near his temple, and somehow- Aoshi just knew that a certain soft-spoken someone was going to blow a gasket, but gently shouldered passed the slightly older man and Yuki, as Tohru went into a full-out panic attack.

"We have to get him to the hospital! He needs medical attention!" At those words, the cat in Tohru's arms seemed surprised at that. To Aoshi who noticed this, she knew that she needed to calm her younger twin down soon. Coincidentally, on looking up, she saw a piece of ceiling about to come straight down on her twin sister's head. Acting quickly, she grasped her sister's arm to Tohru's surprise, and reversed their positions- so that Tohru wasn't the one to get hit, as she was gently shoved backwards into Yuki and Shigure—even as Aoshi was… just as the ceiling piece came down, she made sure that her head was out of the way, as it clouted her across her shoulders. Squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her teeth together, she kept the yelp that would've escaped her back, as she grimaced in pain.

Tohru was surprised to see her older twin right there and was more so surprised- when she got shoved backwards- still holding the orange cat in her arms- into Yuki and Shigure. Out of instinct, Yuki and Shigure stepped forward to brace her from falling…

"Miss Honda!"  
"Tohru!"

…and –accidentally- hugged her from behind.

"AH!"

Then, just as Aoshi was opening her violet eyes, they widened visibly to see Yuki and older man go "POOF" in grey and blue smoke. She quickly got up, despite the pain in her shoulders, and walked up to her sister, who had just turned around and was face to face with…

A grey rat, a smoky blue dog… and an orange cat that she hadn't let go of. Aoshi set her hands on Tohru's shoulders, gritting her teeth, nearly growled out. "Kitten… Calm. Down."

At those words, Tohru cringed and automatically and dropped the orange cat. "S-sorry, Shi-chan… i-it's just…"

Aoshi interrupted her. "Stay calm…" she was about to say more, but was interrupted by a call from downstairs.

"Hello? Choppaya Delivery. Did someone order breakfast?"

Aoshi looked at the smoky blue dog, then shook her head and called back down. "Be there in a sec!"

Looking at her twin again, she gave her a stern look. "Not another word, Kitten. We'll talk as soon as I'm through down there." Tohru nodded, and seemed to sink to the floor, feeling dizzy. Aoshi turned and left to deal with the delivery man; leaving a spazzing Tohru with the animals that were people only moments ago. But when she couldn't take it anymore… gathering all the animals together, ran down the stairs, just as Aoshi was closing the door behind the deliveryman.

"TH-THEY'RE ALL ANIMALS!"

Aoshi rubbed her temples. _'__Oh __boy__…'_

"Great! Now how are we gonna explain this mess?" the orange cat demanded of the grey rat and the smoky blue dog while he had his back to wall and his tail fluffed out in irritation. Aoshi only looked at each one and listened.

"Don't blame me. You're the one who got us all into it." That soft-spoken voice was none other than Yuki… but his voice held a hard edge that could sharpen any verbal knife.

'_Th-they__all__talk!__'_ Tohru thought to herself in a panic.

"ARF! The jig is up. We might as well talk." The dog said, as he got the other two to quiet down. Aoshi looked at the three animals and couldn't help but add in her own 100 yen.

"I'll say." The dog went on as if she hadn't said anything.

"In a nutshell… I'm the dog, Yuki's the rat… and Kyo Sohma is the cat. We're possessed by their vengeful spirits. And there are 10 other Sohmas who are cursed as well."

There was a pause here. And Tohru seemed to have calmed down some, while Aoshi just crouched down to listen to what was being said.

"…ox, rabbit, tiger, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, and boar," seeing Tohru and Aoshi's faces light up with sudden insight, the dog went on, nodding its head.

"Yes, just like the Chinese zodiac. For hundreds of years, the Sohma family has been possessed by the twelve spirits that correspond to the zodiac plus the cat. We don't have any special powers or anything—or rather, we can communicate with our respective animals… but when our bodies are weak, and, for some reason, when we're hugged by someone of the opposite gender, we transform. And after some time, we change back into humans."

As if that was the cue of something unknown to Aoshi or Tohru, there was a "POOF" of grey smoke, and Tohru once again spazzed, going:

"EEK! EEK! EEK!"

Aoshi could only inhale sharply and quickly turned her sister around, making sure to keep her own back turned to the now naked boys and man.

"But then, we're entirely naked."

Aoshi rolled her eyes, and rubbed her sister's back, comfortingly. Tohru leaned on Aoshi, afraid that she'd collapse right there. The two of them waited for the two boys and man to get their clothes back on. When they came back downstairs, the two girls faced them again.

"Sorry about that. Didn't mean to show you things you weren't ready for. Feeling better?"

Aoshi heard her sister's weak reply. "Getting there." And made her mouth move to say: "That should've been the warning earlier before you went into your family story and told us of your family curse." That earned her a shrug from the older man.

Tohru looked between her sister, her classmate; the orange haired boy named Kyo, and their relative, Shigure… and got lost in her own thoughts.

'_They're possessed by the vengeful spirits of the zodiac. Shi-chan and I just learned a terrible secret and Yuki didn't want anyone to find out. THAT'S why he pushed that second year girl away.'_

Suddenly, Shigure was right there in front of her. "By the way, Tohru, you said that you wanted to be the Cat. What do you think now that you met him in person?"

Hearing that Aoshi snickered, and wonderingly asked her sister, "You STILL wish that, Kitten?"

Tohru blushed a bashful pink shade, before her face contorted into earnestness, when she looked at Kyo Sohma, who was cursed with the spirit of the cat, and was currently sitting on the porch with his back to everyone else. _'__Oh __yeah! __So __**HE**__**'**__**S **__the __cat!__'_

"Wh-what's he like…?" Tohru asked, as she and Aoshi (who had the food paid for from the deliveryman) took places at the low table, as she set down the food next to the table. Shigure laughed.

"Kyo's such an idiot! He spends all his time studying martial arts. But he didn't even notice you were right behind him! He should've at the very **least** felt your presence. I hope he plans on taking responsibility for this mess." Shigure laughed again. "Ha Ha Ha! He's like a love-struck fool- he only has eyes for Yuki!"

At that, the orange-haired Kyo finally turned around and yelled. "SHUT UP! **DON****'****T** SAY IT LIKE THAT! I can't help it if people come sneaking up behind me!" He seemed to finally notice Aoshi and Tohru at the table. "What're they… what are **girls** doing here, anyway?"

Tohru looked shocked and perhaps a little irked. "Eh?" was all that came out of Aoshi's twin's mouth. Aoshi on the hand, could see WHY all he'd didn't feel another's presence. At one time, she was like that too. She couldn't see anyone except her opponent and couldn't feel other's around her. This boy, Kyo- he had the same uncontrollable rage that she did at one time… albeit a different reason for it, but still, there was a chance for controlling it- instead of it being the other way around with the rage controlling him.

Aoshi rubbed her temples again, her sister was going to spazz and panic all over again.

'_What __should __we __do? __We __haven__'__t __even __met __and __he__'__s __mad __at __Shi-chan __and __me!__'_ Tohru thought to herself, and felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. Turning she found her twin giving her a stern shake of her short smoky purple haired head, her eyes closed. Tohru could barely keep the panicking at bay. When Aoshi finally opened her eyes, she finally intoned: "Stay. Calm."

Shigure watched the interaction between the two girls and wondered about their twin connection. Thinking back to several moments ago, he realized that he hadn't introduced himself to Tohru's twin sister.

Before anything could be said though, Aoshi seemed to snap her head up and pay more attention to what was being said and the actions that could ensue. Shigure decided to do the same.

"Watch your mouth," Yuki said, pushing back his hair. "Whether there's a woman or two in this house or not is none of your business. You're an outcast, remember?"

That seemed to be the last straw. Aoshi predicted it in her mind, before it happened. She quickly grabbed Tohru's arm and pulled her back, just as Kyo's temper got the better of him and he punched through the table.

"Shut… UP!"

Tohru looked like she was dizzy and leaning on her sister's arm, slowly lowered herself to the floor. Aoshi looked down on her sister and at the anger that was being unleashed from Kyo.

"Tsk, tsk… too close, too close." She murmured quietly, when the two halves of the table flew up. And heard a distinct 'SMACK', and turned her head toward Yuki, who had just smacked Kyo across the face.

Tohru looked aghast. "Soh-" she tried to say, but was silenced by a firm hand on her shoulder and saw her twin shaking her head.

"Don't get in the middle of something that's gonna get you hurt." Aoshi whispered to her younger twin. Tohru, though she was starting to panic a bit, was unsure how to go about making peace between the two boys.

"I always knew you were a fool," Yuki was saying, his voice filled with contempt and loathing. "but now you've really crossed the line." He unbuttoned the top couple buttons of his shirt, and looked at Kyo with hate gleaming in his grey eyes. "Just this once, I'll overlook your stupidity and give you a real fight. Make this worth my time, Kyo."

Both Yuki and Kyo went into a fighting stance. Aoshi watched closely, and predicted silently to herself that Kyo, with his anger and rage, would be the one to attack first. Sure enough that prediction came true, when Kyo yelled out: "Bring it on… PRETTY BOY!"

Shigure yawned in a bored manner. "Oh, this again; those two hate each other with a passion. They see each other and they fight."

He then glanced at Tohru's sister, who was intent on the fight, and only managed to attract her attention by clearing his throat just loud enough to hear. She turned to him, her eyes wide, but when she realized it was just the older man near them, she sighed and apologized.

"Sorry. I'm a martial artist myself. So it'd be pretty natural for a fellow martial artist to watch how others use their technique." She said quietly, glancing out of the corner of her eye at the two boys, who were going to go right at it right there in the living room.

Shigure was surprised. Though he knew a few martial artists in the Sohma family (two of them right there), he was surprised to find that there was yet another martial artist right there in his home. "Is that so," he asked, then, before it got put off again, he finally introduced himself. "by the way, I'm Shigure Sohma, a relative to Yuki and Kyo."

Aoshi nodded her head. "Aoshi Honda. Tohru's older twin sister."

A yell of rage brought the two of them and Tohru back to the two fighting boys. Kyo had started off by sending a high kick at Yuki, who blocked it. While Kyo then used momentary momentum from his high kick to propel himself forward with a punch, which was again, blocked; and with Yuki being forced backward, he finally bent his knee a little and propelled himself forward—just enough to get inside Kyo's guard and sent him flying with high kick to the head, straight out the living room porch doors.

Tohru looked startled and panicked. Shigure just shook his head and looked at Yuki admonishingly, while Aoshi only whistled, impressed. Though she too, could deliver a high kick to the head, she still needed a little more practice to send someone literally FLYING, rather than just knock them down.

Yuki looked over his shoulder contemptuously, hate lacing his voice. "I thought I told you to make it worth me time."

"Yuki, don't go destroying my house too!" Shigure whined, as he watched Aoshi rub her twin's back in an effort to calm her down.

"Sorry. I didn't think he'd fly _that_ far. His guard is terrible." Yuki replied, as he turned toward the Honda twins. And seeing Aoshi rubbing Tohru's back, wondered if the brunette was alright. Aoshi seeing his questioning dark grey eyes, gave him a slight smile.

"She'll be alright. She just needs time to adjust to being around a couple martial artists. Gods knows, being around ME should've prepared her enough for the eventuality." Aoshi said, feeling rather light-headed from her sister's inner war. Tohru was stunned, surprised, and rather… concerned about the strange orange haired boy that went flying.

'_He__… __he __was __sent __**FLYING**__!__' _she thought to herself, sinking deeper into her inner war. _'__I __can__'__t __really __believe __that __Shi-Chan __and __I __learned __something __more__… __that __the __boy __that__'__s __called __around __school__ "__Prince__" __Yuki __is __really __strong! __I __think __Shi-chan __knew__… __and __I __know__–__now- __that __Yuki __was __good __at __P.E. __but __this __is __really __very __different. __He __just __sent __that __boy __flying! __Aoshi __I __don__'__t __think __can __do __that. __It__'__s __like __he__'__s __been __holding __back __at __school__…'_ Tohru left that thought hanging, until she thought of school, and wondered frantically what time it was.

"AAAAHHHH! SCHOOL! I'M GONNA BE LATE!" She finally went into a full-out panic attack, and stood up hurriedly, almost knocking her sister sideways- and who was now looking up at her younger twin.

Shigure looked at Tohru. "School?" he asked, and decided to point out the obvious. "But what will you wear? All your uniforms are covered in mud."

Aoshi heard Shigure's statement concerning her twin's wardrobe, and sighed. "A clean uniform then." She stated, as she took off her small backpack, and took out a bento box and a clean uniform at the bottom, and handed them to Tohru.

"Sis?" Tohru asked in wonderment. Aoshi sighed. "Don't give me that, Tohru. I had the feeling earlier that you would be needing a clean uniform that you could wear. Though why is beyond my own comprehension." She said in exasperation. "Now go get dressed and go to school. I'm gonna be going to work later this afternoon and getting off at about 7 or 8 this evening."

Tohru nodded, and turned toward what was her room, but now noticing that Aoshi wasn't in her school uniform, asked, "What about you? Will you be at school?"

Aoshi gave her an evil grin. "Nah. Not today. I'm gonna be playing hooky. Stayed up late last night due to some… circumstances; so it wasn't till 'round about midnight by the time I got home."

Tohru looked confused and was about to ask what kind of circumstances, but as if reading her sister's mind, Aoshi shook her head. "You're not exactly nosy, Ru-chan. That's me. But you need to get changed and off to school. I'm gonna be heading to the hospital to check up on a friend of mine that got caught up in those 'circumstances.'" Reluctantly, Tohru nodded and headed to her room to get cleaned up and dressed. By the time she was presentable; she hurried downstairs with her schoolbag and cell phone in tow, and nearly ran into Shigure. She bowed in apology.

"I'm really sorry about this. But I have to get to school…" she said, but Shigure waved it off.

"Yes, yes, you did make a promise to your mother," he said, and as an afterthought, went on. "But for my part, I must tell Akito-san- the head of the family, what all has happened here and that the family secret has been revealed."

Tohru nodded her head in understanding, unaware that her sister was sitting on the porch and let out a long, soft whistle, as if calling an animal. "Head of the family… he must be a pretty important person. Of course, I understand." She turned to go, and seeing her sister, she saw an Irish setter coming warily up to the porch, its leash dragging behind it. Gently, touching her twin's shoulder- Aoshi looked up at her, as she held out her hand to her dog.

"I'll bring your homework by your workplace later. Okay?" Aoshi nodded, as she finally felt her dog nuzzle her hand, and she started scratching around Aki's ear. "Yup. Have a good day and be safe, Tohru." She said, watching her sister's retreating back.

Yuki and Shigure watched Tohru walk away with her schoolbag in hand. "Well, I'm off." They heard her say, and saw Aoshi just sitting there on the porch, scratching a dog's ear, as she watched her sister disappear from view. They were about to say something to her, when they finally heard Aoshi speak.

"You know, Shigure-san, if you're to speak to your family head, maybe it can be like a trade." She suggested, still looking out at the scenery and scratching Aki's ear.

Shigure and Yuki looked at each other. _'__A __trade?__'_ they wondered, they looked at the girl on the porch again.

"What kind of trade?" Shigure asked, as he joined her on the porch and held out his hand for the Irish setter to sniff.

"Secrets." Was Aoshi's reply. Shigure raised an eyebrow, and Yuki just stood there in the doorway.

"Secrets?" questioned Yuki, as he narrowed his eyes. "What kind of secret would you or your sister, be keeping, that we would want to know?" he asked, slightly suspicious of the older Honda twin.

"Aside from the fact that I kinda guessed that there was some kind of curse on you and those you're related to? Tohru has no such secret, but she knows about mine." Aoshi said, as she pulled her backpack toward her and brought out a small bag of large jerky strips, and taking one out, gave it to Aki.

Shigure was surprised. "You knew?"

Aoshi looked at him, a tad sheepish. "Kinda-sorta," she replied, now staring at the lighting up of the blue sky overhead. "ever heard the old saying: _the __eyes __are __the __windows __to __the __soul__'_?"

"Yes, but what does that have to do with what you're saying?" asked Yuki, trying not to show any interest in what the girl was saying.

"It's what I can literally do. I can look into one's eyes, and really SEE the animals that represent what that person is like or colors that tell me what their general attitude is at that particular moment in time."

Both man and young teen were wide-eyed with astonishment. A moment of silence ensued over the three that wasn't entirely comfortable, but somewhat peaceful. Finally, Yuki asked what was on his mind.

"And when you look at Shigure and myself, what do you see?" he asked, and what he and the aforementioned man heard, they could understand WHY she thought it was some kind of curse.

"Chains. I see the animals that you represent… but they're chained to your very soul. I've seen so many animals that represent ordinary people, but not one of them has an animal that's chained to them." They way she said this, was laced with sadness… almost as if, she felt sadness toward the animals that were confined and bound to the soul of the cursed family members.

There was silence once more for a few minutes. Before it was broken- not by Yuki or Shigure, but by Aoshi. "I know it's not much. But finding out about your family curse, it would _almost_ make sense for you to know about my… _ability_. Even Tohru has tried asking me what I saw in Yuki's eyes yesterday morning…" she trailed off when she heard Shigure and Yuki's quick intake of breath, and almost grinned and went on. "I didn't say anything. Only that whatever I saw wouldn't warrant any kind of interference from me or anyone else. Though, I too, was curious about the chains aspect, I didn't want to get myself, much less Tohru- into trouble that we couldn't get ourselves out of."

Man and teen boy looked at each other. "Makes sense," Shigure finally answered, letting out the breath that he'd been holding in, as Yuki did the same. "So we can trust the two of you to keep our secret, yes?"

Aoshi finally took her eyes off the peaceful scenery, and looked at Shigure. "As long as you can keep mine; I don't trust very many people with my secret… save Tohru and a couple of our closest friends." She replied with a nod. Shigure nodded.

"It's a deal then." He said, as he watched Aoshi finally put the bag of jerky back in her pack and re-arranged the contents in her backpack, before settling it back on her back again.

"I gotta get going then. Hopefully, the head of your family will understand and agree to our little deal and allow Tohru to stay here for the time being, if that's your agreement with her."

Shigure nodded. "Yes, actually, it was luck that she was here and not in that tent of hers, when the landslide happened," he explained, and then told the young girl about their offer. "But if it's quite alright with you, she can stay here until your grandfather's remodeling is done."

Aoshi sighed. _'__She __didn__'__t __want __to __trouble __those __closest __to __her. __But __if __that__'__s __what __she __wants, __I__'__ve __no __right __to __interfere. __My __little __sister __has __to __spread __her __own __wings __to __fly__.__'_ She thought to herself, as she felt her dog nuzzle and push at her leg, she rubbed Aki's head.

"If that's what she's agreed to, then I'll check in on her from time to time." She replied, as she bent down to take up her dog's trailing leash.

Shigure nodded, as he watched Aoshi and her dog walk away just off to the side, where a purple and dark blue bike was knocked over, she quickly put on her safety gloves, elbow pads and helmet, and after putting her dog's leash over one of the handlebars, gave a last wave to Shigure and Yuki, then kicked up her bike stand and took off with her dog running lightly beside her.

"A little chatty this morning, aren't you? You told them a lot about us." Yuki said, surprising Shigure. "You plan on having their memory suppressed, aren't you? Like last time."

Shigure sighed. "I have no such plans. Besides, even if I did have plans like that- it wouldn't be too hard with Tohru's, but even if we DID manage to suppress Aoshi's memory, she'd still believe that something strange was going on. What with her strange and mysterious ability to see into one's soul. However, all that is on one hand… on the other, last time, there were too many people. We had to take steps."

Yuki turned his back on Shigure and headed back inside. "I'm going to school too," he said, and threw his next sentence at the furious orange-headed boy that was lying on the gravel a number of feet away from the porch. "You could at least fix the roof… Stupid Cat."

Kyo infuriated and humiliated only growled.

Shigure turned to Kyo on the ground. "Kyo, look after things here while we're gone. And please don't disappear again. OH! And do apologize to the twins later."

Silence from Kyo greeted Shigure. "… Shut up!" though no one heard the boy that was now left alone on the ground.

* * *

A/N: Hello, Minna-san! This is Chapter 3 of Doubled Fruits Basket. I hope all who've read so far have enjoyed it. But I'd like an some opinions. Should I extend this chapter or no? Should I also do a split POV here between the twins or not? It just seems like the chapter was kinda short to me.

But let me know what you think and I'll do my very best to leave the chapter as it is or to extend it.

R&R! I'll look forward to your words of encouragement or constructive criticism, and opinions. No flamers plz! ^_^

Until the next time!  
~Mari-Chan~


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